Tell us what you think of the upcoming Crafting Changes.

[Ibn]

Crafting Changes (http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=242)

[Lutieus]

Sounds like a good setup. Doesn't affect DT much, but I imagine it'll have a huge positive impact on white-server economies.

Question, though: Will food items received from gambling be redeemable for xp/cash?

[shobo-dt]

Ibn,

Are there any plans to give certain crafted foods special spells or properties that last for a short while to make up for the decrease in usefulness of crafted items like applesauce? Why not add to the trade value of these items while nerfing their use as an AFK money maker?


Also, I've been seeing "more to come soon" on PvP/Missle/Weeping changes but you guys haven't posted anything yet. Any idea when we might see more on these changes?




Shobo

[Koth]

Excellent move.

Something along these lines should've been done years ago.

I remember when I started (12/99), as an archer with fletching, and one of the first things my patron told me to do was take some time each day to buy heads, buy shafts, fletch arrows, and then sell them back to the same vendor to make money. When I got alchemy, that money increased even more.

That got nerfed back then, but still shows how overdue this change was ;)

[Tahlisa]

The changes sound good to me, as long as you can stiill sell bags of salvage I'm happy



Lutieus, I'm pretty sure that you don't get food from gambling any more. You certainly don't in high stakes, just wings, hearts etc.

[Sep]

Sounds like a great idea. If you don't want it don't make it, because you wont be able to sell it back.

[Lutieus]

Cool, thanks for the info. Guess I should have looked into that prior to posting, as long as it's been since I gambled last.

[ipeacefrog]

Good plan.

Link to responses on HG Vault board:

http://vnboards.ign.com/Harvestgain/b5154/69031993/?11

[Jape]

2x thumbs up.

[CinnamonGirl]

OK I am against all sorts of macros (I don't like Decal too much either) but this

recently had an incident in which one player’s use of multiple macroing characters on multiple accounts actually destabilized one of our game servers.

is *not* the player's fault. If a few characters crafting can bring instability to your servers, that reflects badly on the server code.

Again : I dislike all macros, but don't try to blame everything on them.

kat/CG
O-

[Gouru]

Bottom line, I'm VERY disappointed. I see the title and think FINALLY cooks are gonna become useful.

I open the title and find that no, instead, we are going to add yet another nerf.

Note, on principle, I am AGAINST money macros, and using the crafting skills for that. HOWEVER, now that health, stam and mana potions can all be purchased at level one town vendors with BETTER stats than the best foods a cook can make, there is absolutely ZERO reason to have a cook trade character anymore (although there is one very limited benefit added to having cooking on a main with the rations)

The very first toon I created was a cook, she's currently level 65 and at one time was useful with healing pizzas, though once Alchemists got Trade potions even that went down.

I keep hearing that you are committed to making cooks useful again, but instead month after month I see it ignored. It wouldn't be so bad if during that same period you are finding time to add new alchemy skills (buff gems) and lots of other content.

Darn...I got to quit typing, the more I think about it the more upset I get.

[GKusnick]

While I agree that it's necessary to curb money macros, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. This change effectively divorces the NPC merchants from the player economy altogether. I would much rather see the opposite trend, in which NPC merchants are integrated more fully into the player economy through the use of demand-driven pricing.

Ideally, players should be able to sell their crafted items to NPCs for something near the going rate for those items in the player trade market. Overselling a single type of item should drive the price down, negating profits and putting money macros out of business. But intelligently crafting a variety of items to meet actual player demand should be rewarded by fair prices from NPCs. A crafter shouldn't have to set up a tradebot in Marketplace to sell their wares. The NPC merchants should be able to act as middlemen in these transactions.

[Gouru]

Hrmph...I'm not cooling off trying to ignore this....

It is EXTREMELY hard for me to remain civil and polite about this. I wish I could begin to express how wrong-headed I feel this decision is and still remain in TOS. I am against money macros, especially ones that make obscene amounts of money. The smaller ones don't affect my gameplay much, but, yeah, I don't mind seeing them go away.

BUT WTH is spending time nerfing this more important than spending some time on some new recipes that have real benefits? An unbuffed lvl 7 toon can run from top of Drudge hideout to bottom, looting everything and make a D note every 20 minutes just killing and looting the drudges. The money being put in the economy by these macros is nothing compared to what is being brought in by those awful people actually taking time to loot what they kill. The money WILL NOT AFFECT VERDANTINE. Period.

And yet you find time trying to fix things that don't really affect the game (except for the opinions of a very few vocal people) and spend ZERO time improving cooks.

I simply am in total disbelief that you feel your time is better spent this way.

[kgober]

perhaps it would be quicker if, instead of nickel-and-diming us this way, you just tell us:

what is the single approved mechanic we should use for xp gain, what is the single approved mechanic we should use for cash gain, and what is the single approved mechanic we should use for loot gain?

it used to be you had options in this game, it seems clear to me that the current live team believes that you have no business advancing in this game if you don't kill monsters and loot their corpses (or get your direct vassals to do it for you).

frankly, killing and looting have been some of my *least* favorite things about this game.

don't try to claim that you nerf profitable recipes 'as they are found'. except for the bug with the original potion recipe (the one that allowed you to make potions from scratch without neutral balm) the profitability of every recipe in the game has been available to you. I believe in the case of health potions, the claim was that they were supposed to be profitable, just not *that* profitable.

this game is no longer run by developers who have a clear game concept in mind. it's run by whiners and complainers, and implemented by people who don't have the backbone to tell their idiot users, "your idea is stupid".

why is it every time you do something good, invariably a few weeks later you do something that reaffirms to me that AC is a dying game, and that the only interest you have in it is as a continued source of operating income until you finally hit it big with a real game?

-ken

[Heideggar]

Edit: I think this is a good idea. Crafted items are intended for a player's use, not an NPC's use. While this extreme may not be the best for our economy, and possibly future functionality (as mentioned), it does solve the issue until these other concerns arise.

Holding information of items in NPCs, like vendors, is a huge server resource. That's why it gets refreshed/cleared every so often.

It _would_ be interesting to have a system where if someone was sold a lot to an NPC vendor type, the value started decreasing, and wouldn't increase for X-amount of time.

This may cause some serious resources to fine tweak things so there is little to no macro'ing done, but still providing crafters with a place to sell their wears.

What would be kinda interesting would be a "shop" so to speak.
It'd be kinda like a wall of lockers. Each locker has a place where you can read the advertising, descriptions, etc. You'd have to purchase a locker, and they'd hold a couple hundred items, but items have to stay in there for 16 hour periods (avoid another storage purchasing ability).

Eh, dunno, something like this may help the bot situation in MP. Lessen the spam, allow for !search functions, etc.

[Gouru]

While you are about it, make sure you modify the fishing tables so that you can no longer get sellable loot and salvage out of those either. No way you should allow fishing macros out there making money.

Are you all really that blind?????

[LirSetie_we]

what Gouro said!!!

[kgober]

and salvage shouldn't be sellable to any vendor.

not even gold or pyreal.

-ken

[Zalliun]

waste of resources imo

people that want to macro cash just find a different way to make a profit

and with the ammount of easy cash there is in the game what does a few Mnotes a day matter ?

VT will be as ruined as any other server after 1-2 months anyways

[Gouru]

And if you are REALLY worried about Verdantine economy, make sure the loot that drops from monsters cannot be sold either. It's proper use is to support a player economy. Loot armor is meant to be worn, loot weapons are meant to be used not sold for filthy lucre.

It's the CHEATING LOOTERS grabbing stuff from the things they kill and having the sheer AUDACITY to go sell it a NPC. That is where the economy is getting destroyed.

If you are going to go after money makers in the game, do it where it will do the most good, where the VAST MAJORITY of the spare pyreal are coming from.

Me? Upset? What makes you think that?

[kgober]

you might as well just nerf buffbots completely, or make them against the CoC, if you're that concerned about a fresh start for Verdantine.

go ahead. I dare you to do it.

-ken

[kgober]

oh, and lest you lump me in with the 'cash macroers' who have an obvious reason to complain, I should point out that I haven't run a cash macro since Shadowclaim was up, or any macro at all for that matter (except for one of our allegiance's buffbots).

and I do not plan to play on Verdantine, never mind macro there.

-ken

[Harzah]

Well, it's a much more interesting idea. I know that personally I much prefer to crafting things willy-nilly (one of those "just because I can things). Getting a bonus (a "quest") for it, to help generate income is a lot better than letting a macro sit there and make things over and over again, anyway.

I'm glad that you're not trying to nerf all forms of trade macroing as that would affect me a lot more than this not able to resell thing. Let's face it making a lot of trade health elixirs is boring :D

I do have one question though - you guys do realize that you had just made bundles of arrowheads and whatnot sellable? :P

[sublimaze]

While this change is not that staggering since the profits were only like an m note a day or what have you (far far less then even casual hunting would net), it's not that they are nerfed that's bothersome...

1. It's that the purpose of a cook is now completely dead. Only thing you can do with cooking now is dye stuff. So, let's just make that an alchemy skill and eliminate cooking altogether from the game.

2. The new potions and such are great, so why did you make them loot drops?! It was a perfect opportunity for cooking love. *sigh*

:confused:

[Gouru]

I'm sorry. I was slow to understand your reasoning.

It is the MACROING of pyreal that is the problem, so the proper response is to remove all profit incentive from the macros. I missed your logic somehow.

So I assume you are going to be removing XP from all the monsters now since macroing XP is also a problem that large numbers of people complaing about and will adversly affect Verdantine.

That will make the game SO much easier not having to worry about cash or xp. Glad I finally understand this.

Carry on.

Edit (6 minute timer not up) .. Sublimaze Dyeing DOES require an alchemist, everything except for the final application of the dye. So yeah, remove the cook entirely. Makes more sense.

[Fzzt]

I only hope that you implement a way for a true trade character to make their way in the world.
While the game has always been more about combat/looting, I've always held out hope that playing a 'townie' who doesn't like to fight but enjoys helping other players would be viable without half a dozen active vassals.

Maybe it's time for you to post your REAL list of upcoming changes to AC as I don't remember any of this in the past LTTP.

ps - as a mage with an ust and no pack space I surely hope you don't turn off the ability to sell salvage to the vendors as that is how I make 99% of my pyreals. (Not macroing either, simply usting as I hunt making bags of pyreal, silver, gold and whatever else that has a high value/BU).

Thanks for listening,
Fzzt of FF.

[Kreez]

Holy overreacting Batman. These folks are gonna esplode.

[DarthMord]

I have to agree with Gouru here. If you are going to NERF the selling of craftables, then all means of selling need to be looked at as craftables make very little money in the greater scheme of things. I truly make more money per hour just by salvaging silver into bags rather than parking a trademule.

But if craftables are truly that unbalancing, then we need to ensure that lootgen items cannot be sold. Why? They drop more money into the economy than craftables ever will. You've (Turbine) have already established that craftable selling is dangerous to the game. So by proxy, lootgen selling (which is far more prolific) must be even moreso.

If you truly wanted to nerf this into something that was inconsequential, you should just make the resulting craft items cost 5 pyreal more than their total source item costs. For those w/o a source item cost (due to quest source, etc), make the resulting item worth 10 pyreal.

But as it stands, you've all but gutted Cooking. All you can really do with it now is dye stuff. Sure, you can still make foods, but why would you want to? Other recovery methods are now far superior. Just stroll into town and buy from a vendor or spend some time looting. Trade elixirs already killed Cooking. The new potions put the nail in the coffin.

I'm starting to wonder what's going on at Turbine. It's looking from my perspective as though the Live Team is losing sight of the forest for all the trees.

A question you folks on the Live Team should be asking is "Will this get more people to log in and play or will it drive them away?".

I'll tell you right now, I'm tired of mechanics changes. I'd like to see more content and things to do. Sure, we've got the Burun. Big deal. I don't care about them. Why? They don't mean anything to me. You, the storytellers have done nothing to make me want to get involved with them. If you don't build it, the players won't come. This storyline feels to be about as interesting as the Virindi storyline. We all know how the playerbase felt about that.

So in conclusion, will nerfing craftable selling help draw more players and get more players to log in? Or will it just serve to further atagonize & alienate the playerbase? Personally, I believe there are far more important things for the Live Team to spend their time on.

[MaddyFF]

I have mixed feelings about this. I can understand the frustration in trying to make it so people can't make money unattended (I'm wuth Gouru, you can make money fast by hunting with a newbie), but this is kind of a board stroke.

Being an ol' coot, I can remember the first pricing nerf, the selling of greater arror heads in Arwic and making really obsence amounts of money for the time. It was addressed but raised an important issue: How does someone make money that wishes to play a trade character?

On closing, cooking really needs some love, bad. I'm thinking food that boosts a stat for a short period of time, maybe 10-15 minutes. The better food you make, the bigger boost you get. Maybe starting at a +2 to a stat and going up to +5.

[Hosagi]

what i stated im sure alot of other people would state
that is we are fed up with the devs saying one thing then turning around and doing the opposite

XP Chains Working as they are meant to(a few complaints) XP Chains are now nerfed

UCM not allowed but tolerated(a few complaints) UCM is now illegal

Money Macros perfectly legal(a few complaints every time someone finds a way to support their chars) and now the devs add anothe 3 skills to the totally useless skills list(those being Loyalty Leadership Assess Person Assess Creature Arcane Lore Deception and now Alchemy Cooking and Fletching)

please tell me what other skills are going to be made usless

[Jet-eye-nite]

Pyreal who cares its worthless anyway .I myself could care less if someone macros all day long ,I just pass them by ,they have 0 effect on me as the economy is not driven by the pyreal anyway .
I think out of all the post I have seen on this GKusnick hit it on the pyreal (re-read his/her post) . Nowadays to not make a MMD per buff your not looting (its all the present loot is good for ,selling as there sure aren't anykeepers being found),so say you do and play a simple 2 buffs aday you will have 60 MMD in a month . Now for the real question what are they worth ,sure a few plats but other than that they = pfft ! As for the players that need to hold 1500 plats , so what, go for it .The only way this could have any impact on player base would be if each patch there was a limit to amount of items available for sale ,which might really be a cool idea if it was handled properly . Lastly if your servers are so weak that a few macros can bring them to there knees ,then your in a worse state of affairs than I thought . :rolleyes:

[Flynn]

Oh, come on people, relax. Until we see exactly what the rewards for crafted items will be and what the timers are, there's no way you can say that craft skill characters won't be viable.

This change makes ZERO difference to anyone who crafts items for use, it only affects those who made money from it. Yes, it means that it's no longer possible to make money crafting by simply selling it back to the vendor, but it WILL still be possible to make cash in the future, with the new NPCs. Not only that, you'll get xp for it too! And you call this a nerf????

I'm 100% confident that some of the people who think this is a bad idea will go 'Oh, maybe it wasn't so bad after all' once it's in. And even if there's enough people still not happy with it, Turbine will respond and improve on it, I'm sure.

Have a Hearty Green Tea Ice Cream, and chill.....

Oh, and Hosagi.. Without alchemists and fletchers, archers can't have arrows that do any more than trivial damage- that's hardly useless. Cooking I'll admit, needs some love badly though.

[Gouru]

Maddy, maddy, maddy....you simply don't understand!

Turbine does not have enough people to create new useful recipes for cooks. Their time is MUCH better spent creating new useful potions for NPCs to carry in stock, and creating New NPCs that will give you a pittance for your crafted items.

Based on the Ash Gromnie tooth dynamic, all cooks will have to do is go to the market place, buy a rare ingredient for about a plat a piece. You can then craft your item, and turn it in for a 10,000 xp and a C note.

Of course, if you don't want to go shopping, you could act like a real cook, go out and camp Ash Gromnies using your uber cooking skills. And maybe pick up a tooth for every 20 you kill. I understand that the major cooking schools are all adding gromnie killing to their required course syllabus.

[KPD157]

I cannot see any problems with making Craftables not sellable at Vendors. Money does mean alot and will in the future. Whatever they do to make Crafting get more XP over a time interval is always welcomed. It just goes to say I seen how Turbine works and has always worked by looking at their Nerf History :)

And this was albiet very unlikely to happen it was a possibility and prolly why I never constructed some sort of macro that took advantage of Selling Trade skill made items :)

Have to Give my thumbs up on this because its a great way to value money and help the Trade people make XP when they get it all straight :)

[Hosagi]

when has Turbine ever said Nerf has it ever been a good thing(well maybe its a good thing to those who want it)but to the people who it will affect more(those being the people who have to support 2-3 mages a cupple archers and a few tradeskillz mulez)the trade craft nerf is a bad idea what turbine did was finally and effectively kill off old school trade skills mules well congratz Turbine this was going to happen sooner or l8r heres hoping that the rest of ac doesnt go just as badly

edit: just read KPD's post
Umm KPD some tradeskillz mules have one problem with hunting
THEY HAVE NO HUNTING ABILITY
and as for the so called xp you get for doing trade skillz crafting? hah u got more xp from InstaOg macroing than you get from making a health potion

[Nihilist]

Seems quite sensible to me. It means Turbine won't have to chase this sort of macroing in the future. Better to try and get rid of a problem by making it not worth while or impossible than to scrabble about at the edges of it all the time trying to keep up.

I don't have much in the way of characters with trade skills, but it seems to me from peoples musings that they may need an update.

[Hamfast]

I think I have to agree with Gouru... not that I mind...

This change seems to be aimed more at making a "Crafter" a less viable character choice unless they have vassals pushing them...

I can see one good thing, that weapon you imbued is now a "Craft" item, so not able to be sold... but it's not like a "Tinker" was a viable character without some other way to get the toon XP... or is this type of "Craft item" not included in the Resale Nerf?

At least the original Craft Skills (Cooking, Alchemy and Fletching) can generate some XP, and repeatedly making items in a proper order can help that "Tradesman" to gain levels (Very slow I might add) but the loss of the ability to "Sell their work" for even a small profit, means they become "Welfare Case" and must be fed by the "Working Class" types that can hunt and loot...

[MaddyFF]

One question, how about bags of salvage? Will we be able to sell these still?

[Ryori]

A good decision I think and a good call, and overdue, for more quests like the ones in Glendon Woods. Given that they are % rewards, the ash teeth are not worth much till the toon has enough XP to pump up the skills.

Given we don't get prompted when USTing, I would assume salvage is not a craft, but that is something to double check.

I am far from a purist, but to me this is a clear choice. Applesause and most craftable items have little value in the player market. The ones that do are worth more in the player economy than they are to an NPC. Many are ONLY useful if macroed in mass quantities. If something is only useful if macroed then it should be removed.

Money macroing does not make a character viable in the first place. And we have full decision on how to build a toon. We chose to min/max toons for trades so our mains didn't need alch or cook so we freed up some credits. With the passup changes this ceratainly effects the way we can level these toons, but at least in my guild there are trades/tinkers that were build to fight and take XP. It can be done...

As far as noobs - almost all of the starter quests give money as part of the rewards.

NOTE: Turbine : many of the starter quests give heal potions. Given they can be crafted that would mean they could not be sold. There should be a difference between crafted and store healing potions so the ones we get from quests can still be sold. There might be a few other things like this as well.

[kgober]

Originally posted by Nihilist
Seems quite sensible to me. It means Turbine won't have to chase this sort of macroing in the future. Better to try and get rid of a problem by making it not worth while or impossible than to scrabble about at the edges of it all the time trying to keep up.

I quite agree. I think we need a similar solution to the UCM problem. why scrabble at the edges of it all the time, it's expensive and a poor use of the Envoys' time.

you should remove XP and loot from the game, that will make any kind of combat macroing (attended or not) not worth while.

-ken

[Blushtusker]

A question you folks on the Live Team should be asking is "Will this get more people to log in and play or will it drive them away?".

I think we can miss this ppl what only log in to do macroing.


Good job Turbine.

[ArielleZeke]

We respect guts.


Thank you Turbine for your very adult choice made in the best interest of the game we love so much.


Edit : took out the sig for space reasons ;)

[Davidge]

Gouru said what I think . . .

Originally posted by Gouru
....
BUT WTH is spending time nerfing this more important than spending some time on some new recipes that have real benefits? An unbuffed lvl 7 toon can run from top of Drudge hideout to bottom, looting everything and make a D note every 20 minutes just killing and looting the drudges. The money being put in the economy by these macros is nothing compared to what is being brought in by those awful people actually taking time to loot what they kill. The money WILL NOT AFFECT VERDANTINE. Period.

And yet you find time trying to fix things that don't really affect the game (except for the opinions of a very few vocal people) and spend ZERO time improving cooks.

I simply am in total disbelief that you feel your time is better spent this way.

I have never money macro'd, don't agree with it, but this direction takes you into a path that does not help the game near as much as many other badly needed fixes could.

For instance, you might consider devoting the time and effort into something useful for all players, not a screaming and very noisy minority . . . something like improving the allegiance chat controls with better functionality (timed chat boots, or perma-chat boots) . . . or providing a seller based economy on items sold to NPC's, (the more of the same thing you sell, the lower its profit margin gets, think AoE's selling economy model) or building new and interesting crafter quests that are actually useful to high level crafting characters that cannot survive the content targeted at their generic level.

Who is Turbine listening to these days? Apparently not the regular player . . .

[Ahms]

I like the change *thumbs up* Only bad thing is now towns will be totally empty :D

[_AbBaNdOn]

Why does it take player outrage before turbine gets off there $#% to fix a problem. It still makes me sick you let tailspikes get macroed for an entire month.

Oh well i guess you care NOW and thats better than nothing although not by much. I think you solution is great but i do have my own to share.

#1. Make all craftable items be able to be sold for 0 pyreal. Why? So people can get rid of the stuff if they find it on monsters and pick it up if that will be a situation.

#2. Make the item crafted sell for what it took to buy in supplys. This way trademules can macro and not make money but get skills as if thats what they really cared about.

#3. I believe you are trying to think of solutions for the tradeskill characters of AC and i hope you dont rush to try and solve it. I hope your goal is to let people gain XP into tradeskills as quickly as people who hunt to gain xp, without having to macro.

possable solutions for tradeskills gaining xp:

#1. time related. The longer the character exists the more skills he has ala EVE online.

#2. Create a new skill called apprentice. A player with that skill could choose Any character on the same account to become an apprentice to. It would be the reverse of loyalty. The higher the apprenticeship the more xp's get passed DOWN to the trademule. Leadership could also affect this and the total max could be 150% xp passed down. Any xp's produced by a character with apprentice would be passed up normally using loyalty and leadership to someone he is sworn to(which could not be a character from the same account like now). This would allow you to hunt with your main and allow you to generate xp's for your trademule.

#3. Tons of new craftable items or a few really generic ones. If a mule crafts something with a difficulty of 250 thats how much xp he gets?? Why not adjust it so there are huger return items. Like you could craft a burrito at 300 difficulty and get back 5000x that in xp. Although this is going to be macroed and cause the servers to go to hell.

#4. Skill kits. These would cost enourmous ammounts of money. Like 1.5 million pyreal for a piece of the kit and it would take 24 pieces to make a full kit. Different kits would cost different amount for the dif skill levels. Instead of some stupid macro doing skill checks so many times in a minute a skill kit would let a tradeskill character use it which would send the character into a training state for an amount of time like a half hour or a full hour or dependant on the type of kit he uses. At the end of the time he would stop and will have made aan amount of XP dependant on the type of kit he used. for example a excellent cooking kit might take 30 minutes to use and generate 3 million xp. An elite cooking kit may take an hour and a half to use and generate 15 million. During the training state the character would be doing some kind of emote so that they dont get booted from the server.

If the training gets interrupted by a person getting booted or going into war mode the kit remembers how much time was put into it and when you come back on or go back into piece mode you can finish right where you left off.





I think #2 and #4 are incredibly awesome and should be implemented as soon as you can write the code =). I have one account and limited time so I had to hunt with my trademule to level it and now that it can do stuff with 7's i dont plan on touching it for a long time. but if i could make it use a training kit while i slept or generate xp for it while i hunt that would rule.

[nofeir]

Another nerf for crafters, eh? I've never used my craft skill player to make money because it's way faster to hunt and loot. So, if you're going to nerf everything crafters do, why did you even put them in the game?

We are all still waiting for the devs to tell us just how in the Hxxx
one is supposed to level a craft player especially now that you can't move them up in an xp chain. ("Craft" = cooking, alchemy, fletching and all tinkering skills, imho.)

A true crafter really can't have stats and skills that will permit them to hunt as well as craft if they are to be any good at crafting. Oh, sure, you can take your main player to the casino (or even your crafter IF they can travel) and hand off trophies to your cook, but after about level 30 or so leveling with trophies gets very slow and by the time you get above 50, it would take YEARS to go up in level (using trophies) at anything like the rate a hunter can go up.

Come on, devs, give us some REAL xp for using crafting skills. Crafters are no less skilled than hunters, and some are MORE skilled, (mine can get some of her skills way higher than any of my hunters and they are higher than she is) but crafters get almost no xp for what they do. Trophies IS NOT the answer.

[-Six-]

I have a trades char with cooking, and I have to say this change doesn't negatively affect me at all.

I don't money macro.
I don't make **** to sell to vendors.
I level (or don't level) with my bow.

Not that I see this at all as a viability issue, but nobody ever promised all trades chars would be viable. It's a gameplay choice.

[Gouru]

You know...an equally effective solution is to just remove all crafted foods except for rations from the game. They have absolutely no purpose, as anything they can provide can be gotten cheaper directly from an NPC. At one time a cook could support her stam needs while fighting by cooking up the foods she found on monsters, but that was removed. HH Pizza and Kimchi used to be worthwhile, but now the equivalent and better is bought over the counter from merchants. There is not a SINGLE food that has any purpose in the game.

Remove them, you remove all the food macros, less storage used on your server, less lag.

Don't go half-*** on your fix here, if they can't be sold back, they have ZERO purpose, so just go ahead and remove them. Okay?

[KPD157]

Is this why you guys added the new healing and Stamina and mana potions and made new names that we couldn't Make ?)

Cause if thats so then you guys are holding out on us about anouncing this so late but I forgive you at least we won't have to drop tons of stuff on the ground that are craftable because most of the items on monster loot won't be craft Items if any are :)

Thanks again thumbs up and keep working on making the game Rock in as little steps as possible :)

[JJC]

Will there be items for people to tinker to get tinkering exp?

JJC

[AC_Guy]

While I think its a great Idea to Nerf the Money Macros I REALLY hope your looking at making Trade Skill Useful at some point where a person can make money by trading there goods with other players.

There are a few thing now that players buy but for the most part they are overshadowed by rewards from quests/NPC's.

Secondly what few things people do buy are tedious to make in the first place.

[Setolc]

Originally posted by Gouru
You know...an equally effective solution is to just remove all crafted foods except for rations from the game. They have absolutely no purpose, as anything they can provide can be gotten cheaper directly from an NPC. At one time a cook could support her stam needs while fighting by cooking up the foods she found on monsters, but that was removed. HH Pizza and Kimchi used to be worthwhile, but now the equivalent and better is bought over the counter from merchants. There is not a SINGLE food that has any purpose in the game.

Remove them, you remove all the food macros, less storage used on your server, less lag.

Don't go half-*** on your fix here, if they can't be sold back, they have ZERO purpose, so just go ahead and remove them. Okay?

Hmmm the tone is a tad bitter, but I do have to agree with the principal behind it. I do not money macro. More productive to go to Ayan or the Hive and hunt/loot to gain xp & pyreal.

I fondly remember running around getting the components to make Hearty Healing Pizzas. The THE killed that. Now, this patch the new tinctures etc. has killed the THE. The field rations are also now on the wayside too.

It seems that having cooking skill is useless, unless, you want to coordinate your armor.

As to this change, neutral, but I am curious what the plans are to make cooking a viable skill to have.

[fodderboy]

I applaud Turbine for finally doing something about macroing for money. I don't applaud them for the way they've gone about it though. To me, it appeared as if Turbine wasn't really overly-concerned about money macroing because it has been going on for a long time and it is only because a) A new world is opening in less than a month, and b) Servers were affected, that they are doing anything about it at all. They've had a long time to think through and test a proper solution to the problem but what we will be getting is a rushed fix that will affect other aspects of the game as well.

[Fezman]

There seems to be a major fundamental flaw here...

Problem #1: Trade Characters can't sell crafted items to vendors to make pyreals.
Turbine's Solution: Go kill stuff to make money.

Problem #2: Trade characters can't make beneficial amounts of xp.
Turbine's Solution: Go kill stuff to make xp.

Problem #3: Trade characters can't make anything besides arrows, that offer an obvious advantage to store bought items.
Turbine's Solution: Don't even bother making anything besides arrows.

Problem #4: To make the only things that offer any value whatsoever to other players, you need to sink tons and tons of xp into your crafting skills, which you can't make by crafting in any decent amount of time.
Turbine's Solution: Go kill stuff to make xp.

Problem #5: Trade characters don't want to kill stuff to make xp or money.
Turbine's Solution: Sorry, we're too busy worrying about HOW you're playing the game, rather than whether or not you're actually enjoying it. Go kill stuff to make xp and money.

At least I can tell I'm not the only one here that thinks Turbine couldn't possibly care less about trade characters if they tried.

[Gafoon]

This is SO broken. Gouru and KGober are right

The macroers will just stop macroing trade skills and start macroing other things.

Like fishing - if they sell their fishing returns they can make quite a fair amount of profit. Worst case they can salvage the fishing rewards and sell those.

If they nerf that, people will just start macroing the random fruit drops - since fruit can't be crafted, it should still be sellable.

If they nerf that, people will just create a level one toon and run him in and out of the academy dungeons picking up the loot from the chests (the armor that spawns on the floor is worth about 100py).

If they nerf that, people will just create a toon and run it between random landscape spawns of jewelry/armor.


The only end of this escalation results in their removing the ability to sell loot.

And meanwhile, my cook sits there, without any vassal XP, without any ability to generate XP on his own (since he doesn't have a killing skill).

Waiting patiently for Turbine to do something to make him useful again.

[Signalerror]

Originally posted by _AbBaNdOn



#2. Create a new skill called apprentice. A player with that skill could choose Any character on the same account to become an apprentice to. It would be the reverse of loyalty. The higher the apprenticeship the more xp's get passed DOWN to the trademule. Leadership could also affect this and the total max could be 150% xp passed down. Any xp's produced by a character with apprentice would be passed up normally using loyalty and leadership to someone he is sworn to(which could not be a character from the same account like now). This would allow you to hunt with your main and allow you to generate xp's for your trademule.



Now thats a good idea!

How about it take place of assess person? It would finaly make aluvians usefull agian and ties into the Fudal'ish background of the aluvians.

[Gouru]

Originally posted by AC_Guy
While I think its a great Idea to Nerf the Money Macros I REALLY hope your looking at making Trade Skill Useful at some point where a person can make money by trading there goods with other players.

There are a few thing now that players buy but for the most part they are overshadowed by rewards from quests/NPC's.

Secondly what few things people do buy are tedious to make in the first place.

Orion has said for many months that cooking was something he wanted to give love to. Based on the recent changes, the giving of the new potions to NPCs, the inability to sell crafted items, etc. I no longer believe him.

You do NOT build a player economy for crafted items by making NPCs sell unlimited supplies of stuff with better stats than the crafted items. The actions have spoken WAY louder than the empty words.

Let's just get rid of the cooking profession and be done with it.

[Shadow Mouse]

I had wrote out a well thought out and typed reply, but the AC message boards had apparently logged me out when I posted it, so it is lost and so is my will to retype it.

The gist was: Is such an extreme measure neccessary?

[ElgarL]

I totally disagreee with it. Crafters have never been a viable character without macroing their skills. There were some attempts at making them viable by handing in trophies, but to get the trophies you had to hunt and trades characters generally cant do that.

Go through and you add up all the different items you can use to level a trade character that can be obtained without fighting. With the timers on some of them I guarantee you'll find it near impossible to progress a trade character to lvl 50 within a year.

There is only one viable method of leveling a trades character and thats to whore XP from vassals. Trade skills are a class are dead in AC.

[Martak]

Well I am mixed about this that is for sure. I do believe that nerfing money macros is important, but I truly believe you are nerfing trade characters at the same time. What fun will it be to play one if you cannot sell items. To me I would think you are only increasing the profit they will make by increasing the price on their tradebots. So a little more work for them, but they will figure out a macro for it.

Instead of stopping the sales of items, why don't you go after the macroers. I mean you had no problems moving people out of the Marketplace with Tradebots. Why don't you just camp out the Samsur Healer and Grocery stores and move the macroers away to Never-Never Land or maybe to the middle of VoD.

Or maybe increasing the sell ratio across the board wasn't such a good idea?

Or maybe you should increase the number of raids on towns so it smacks down those that are macroing?

I have always stood by what Turbine says, but I have to say that more important issues like CONTENT should be your priority. The game works, let us enjoy it again.

Spend less time making nerfing skills, less time making more xp for lvl 126 characters (who cares they are maxed anyway) and spend more time making the game fun again.

I came back to AC when I heard Turbine bought it back from M$oft, because I thought good things where going to happen. It is starting to look like I was wrong.

[Gafoon]

I actually like Martak's idea.

Just put a static spawn of <level appropriate critters> that spawn once an hour right next to the vendors in town.

Or give the envoys the ability to teleport a player that is crafting in town away from the vendor.

It doesn't solve the problem, but it does raise the bar significantly.

[Zariak]

Please Please Please..

Take a step back and see what really is going on here. With the expansion coming up you have a chance to fix everything. After spending a few months with so many other online game I keep coming back to AC. There is a reason for this, it's still one of the best ones out there. Solutions like this are a little troubling. Stop tripping over $20 bills to pick up $5s.

Stop fixing the results and attack the cause.

[kgober]

Originally posted by ElgarL
There is only one viable method of leveling a trades character and thats to whore XP from vassals. Trade skills are a class are dead in AC.

new players are few and far between, so unless you have more than one account and want to be your own vassal, you can forget about trade skills on any established server.

Verdantine should have plenty of new characters, however. You should have no trouble getting a vassal there.

Oh wait, what will you be able to offer them? Cash? Good loot items?

never mind, trade skills are dead, even on Verdantine.

-ken

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Gouru
While you are about it, make sure you modify the fishing tables so that you can no longer get sellable loot and salvage out of those either. No way you should allow fishing macros out there making money.

Are you all really that blind?????

We will be making changes to reduce the effectiveness of fishing macros as well, the info on this will be in the Letter to the Players.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Fzzt
Maybe it's time for you to post your REAL list of upcoming changes to AC as I don't remember any of this in the past LTTP.

This, unfortunately, was not a change that we have been planning on for some time. This is a change that we first realized was necessary just a few days ago. We decided that making the change in time for Verdantine opening was very important, even if we could not present the change a month ahead of time as we have been doing recently.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by MaddyFF
On closing, cooking really needs some love, bad. I'm thinking food that boosts a stat for a short period of time, maybe 10-15 minutes. The better food you make, the bigger boost you get. Maybe starting at a +2 to a stat and going up to +5.

We agree with you. Cooking needs a lot of love... in fact when we were discussing this issue, some members of the team felt that we should wait and not make this change until we were able to make cooking improvements. Unfortunately, the scope of the improvements that we'd like to make means that we won't be able to get to them for some time, and we felt that this issue needed to be resolved before then.

[Gouru]

Originally posted by Ibn
We will be making changes to reduce the effectiveness of fishing macros as well, the info on this will be in the Letter to the Players.

Cool! You're listening to me! So you'll be removing xp from monsters too? This game is getting better and better!

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Hamfast
I can see one good thing, that weapon you imbued is now a "Craft" item, so not able to be sold... but it's not like a "Tinker" was a viable character without some other way to get the toon XP... or is this type of "Craft item" not included in the Resale Nerf?

For purposes of the code, "tinkering" is an interaction that makes a change to an existing item, whereas "crafting" is an interaction that takes two items and creates a third new item.

From the outside, the difference can be difficult to see -- for example when you add an infusion to one of Nuhmudira's Gorgets, you're actually destroying the infusion, destroying the original Gorget, and getting a new item. That's a craft interaction.

Whereas in tinkering, the original item is not destroyed, simply changed in some way.

For these reasons those tinkered items that are currently sellable (which should be all of them, unless I'm forgetting something) will remain sellable.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by MaddyFF
One question, how about bags of salvage? Will we be able to sell these still?

Yes.

Our goal is not the removal of money-making methods, our goals is the removal of money-making macros.

[Gafoon]

So you're fixing crafting macroing.

You're fixing fishing macroing.

What are you going to do to fix "pick it up off the ground" macroing?

How about "Get it out of a chest" macroing?

Don't believe that it won't happen, because it will.

It will only be a matter of weeks (maybe even days) before someone on Verdentine is running macros that simply sell the stuff that's found on the ground.

The only thing that limits those is the respawn time. And macros have a LOT of patience.

[Kreez]

Perhaps Turbine is working toward a macro free game.

Ever consider that?

[Gouru]

Originally posted by Ibn
We agree with you. Cooking needs a lot of love... in fact when we were discussing this issue, some members of the team felt that we should wait and not make this change until we were able to make cooking improvements. Unfortunately, the scope of the improvements that we'd like to make means that we won't be able to get to them for some time, and we felt that this issue needed to be resolved before then.

Sorry, I'm bitter. I've been patient. I even refrained from screaming when you completed the nerf cook by making items from NPCs available with the exact same stats as Hearty Famous Pizzas, and better stats than Green Tea Ice Cream and Hearty Hot Kimchi's the only other 'decent' foods. This change is just rubbing our cooks faces in dirt and proving to the player base you have absolutely ZERO concern for the cooking trade skill.

I've been hearing that story about cooking love for over a year. I no longer believe you as your actions are much much louder than empty words. The way I feel I could easily step over the line and call you all liars, but I assume you actually believe what you are saying. It's a shame nobody else does.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by KPD157
Is this why you guys added the new healing and Stamina and mana potions and made new names that we couldn't Make ?)

No, it's not. The new potions were in concept as early as March, whereas we hadn't even thought of making this change until just a few days ago.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by JJC
Will there be items for people to tinker to get tinkering exp?

I hope so -- I will be strongly suggesting to the team that these rewards not be limited to alchemy/cooking/fletching but also involve tinkers.

The first pass in June, for low-level crafters, will only have NPCs for alchemy/cooking/fletching, but we plan on adding many more of these types of NPCs.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by ElgarL
I totally disagreee with it. Crafters have never been a viable character without macroing their skills. There were some attempts at making them viable by handing in trophies, but to get the trophies you had to hunt and trades characters generally cant do that.

Go through and you add up all the different items you can use to level a trade character that can be obtained without fighting. With the timers on some of them I guarantee you'll find it near impossible to progress a trade character to lvl 50 within a year.

There is only one viable method of leveling a trades character and thats to whore XP from vassals. Trade skills are a class are dead in AC.

I don't see what selling crafted items has to do with being able to advance your crafter's level. This change doesn't remove any methods for gaining XP, in fact it is ADDING methods that did not previously exist. This change only removes methods for gaining pyreals.

[Kreez]

Ibn,

IS this the first step in a series of changes that will:

1) Eliminate the profitability and usefulness of automations in game

and more importantly

2) Eliminate the percieved need for such crutches in game?

[ElgarL]

I don't see what selling crafted items has to do with being able to advance your crafter's level. This change doesn't remove any methods for gaining XP, in fact it is ADDING methods that did not previously exist. This change only removes methods for gaining pyreals.

It changes it a HUGE amount. You can no longer be a self supporting trades character. You now HAVE to be supported by someone that can make cash for you to be able to do anything.

Your forcing trades characters into poverty in such a way that their only means of support is from another character. As I said Trade skills as a class are dead in AC.

[Fezman]

Originally posted by Gouru
Cool! You're listening to me! So you'll be removing xp from monsters too? This game is getting better and better!

Better stop quick... I don't think they're catching the sarcasm... :(

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Gouru
I've been hearing that story about cooking love for over a year. I no longer believe you as your actions are much much louder than empty words. The way I feel I could easily step over the line and call you all liars, but I assume you actually believe what you are saying. It's a shame nobody else does.

I believe it when I write it. I believe it because I've read the plans, and read the specs.

I also believe it because my first character, born 11/2/99, started with Cooking trained and now has it spec'd.

Believe me, I sympathize with you regarding the plight of Cooking, as does the rest of the team.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Kreez
IS this the first step in a series of changes that will:

1) Eliminate the profitability and usefulness of automations in game

and more importantly

2) Eliminate the percieved need for such crutches in game?

I wouldn't necessarily call it the first step. We're always looking for ways to improve the game for players in ways that decrease the preception that third-party apps are necessary.

For example, many of our buffing changes most improve buffing by players who self-buff instead of using a buffbot.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by ElgarL
It changes it a HUGE amount. You can no longer be a self supporting trades character. You now HAVE to be supported by someone that can make cash for you to be able to do anything.

Your forcing trades characters into poverty in such a way that their only means of support is from another character. As I said Trade skills as a class are dead in AC.

I still do not see what this has to do with XP, but you are correct, the sell changes do remove the ability for tradeskill characters to support themselves.

This is exactly why we are introducing NPCs with XP and monetary rewards for crafting mini-quests. We want to ensure that these characters ARE self-sufficient.

[Gafoon]

I'm just trying to understand how my tradeskill character (who has essentially no ability to hunt) can be self sufficient.

Right now, he depends on my other characters for his Ash gromnie teeth.

Are there plans in the works for rewards that don't involve hunting?

[Hosagi]

Originally posted by Ibn
I still do not see what this has to do with XP, but you are correct, the sell changes do remove the ability for tradeskill characters to support themselves.

This is exactly why we are introducing NPCs with XP and monetary rewards for crafting mini-quests. We want to ensure that these characters ARE self-sufficient.
then the devs and my interpretation of self sufficient are 2 different things
my view of self-sufficient means that i make money from stuff i make and not be forced to do quests if i want to go on a quest ill do so but sometimes i like to do things solo and that means i sell what i make and i use that money to keep my finances to support other ventures and with the comming craft nerf youeliminate any chance for the true trade skills characters to be self sufficient by forcing them to rely on other chars to get items for crafting

[KPD157]

You have Quelled my fears.. wait I never had any on this issue as I stated before :)

Anyway I love the Fact your going to give Crafters more rewards and incentives than just being a money maker. I personally like putting another character under my crafter or tinkerer and or level them by specializing them with one craft or tinker ;)

Thumbs up again you guys are doing a great job :)

PS: I'm not ever sad when I can take out one more functionality from my plugin that is supported in the game for all you Decal plugin programmers. We make plugins to simplyfy what is not available in a game mechanic so please don't forget that when you speak out here :)

[DHMagicMan]

This is just SAD!

I don't see how Turbine can hope to set up "Mini-quests" that let Trades chars be independant.

With the macros you can at least break even and maybe even make a LITTLE but you don't come close to the kind of money people can get from hunting in the same time. I would venture to guess that any money macro running for 24 hours right now makes LESS than a good hunter in a good loot area in 2 hours.

In my opinion it's basically impossible to build a good crafter any more. The best thing to do would be to build a strong archer template... level into the 100s... then spend the next 6 months redistributing stats and changing / specializing skills.

New crafters without a hunter feeding them EXP would be hard pressed to get to level 40 and I would bet that won't change with these stupid "Mini-Quests".

I'm really discouraged today, Ibn. I honestly thought Turbine had a better vision for this game than this.

[Amuk]

I think your not supposed to have a trade character.
It looks like they want you to take 1 tinker skill on a main character and are taking away all ways to gain lots of xp other then combat with monsters.

[Maxymyllyn]

...is that they never intended for 'crafting' characters and 'tradeskills' characters to never hunt.

...which is fine for me.

[GKusnick]

Originally posted by Ibn
I don't see what selling crafted items has to do with being able to advance your crafter's level.What should crafting be about, then, if it's not about making useful items for sale? Crafters should be able to advance by usefully practicing their craft. Sure, you can concoct make-work quests that use crafting skills to deliver cash or XP rewards, but that's not why people make crafting toons. They make them in order to fill an economic need for player-crafted items. That implies the ability to sell those items to other players, either directly, or indirectly through NPC merchants. Selling crafted items should have everything to do with advancing your crafting skills. If you really don't see that, then why have crafting skills at all?

[boneyard]

good changes

[Ibn]

One other thing that I think I should clarify -- unlike the GW pacifists, these "quests" don't rely on trophy items. Your crafter will be rewarded for crafting goods using store-bought items.

I should also reiterate that this will only be the first pass on these quests, and that the first batch will only be for new and low-level characters.

Lastly, I should mention this up-front: the fletching reward does require an alchemical component. We don't like this particularly at the moment, but fletching is arguably the most useful of the three non-tinkering tradeskills at the moment and fletching tends to be paired with alchemy on many characters.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by GKusnick
What should crafting be about, then, if it's not about making useful items for sale? Crafters should be able to advance by usefully practicing their craft. Sure, you can concoct make-work quests that use crafting skills to deliver cash or XP rewards, but that's not why people make crafting toons. They make them in order to fill an economic need for player-crafted items. That implies the ability to sell those items to other players, either directly, or indirectly through NPC merchants. Selling crafted items should have everything to do with advancing your crafting skills. If you really don't see that, then why have crafting skills at all?

Do players frequently buy THEs, deadly elemental arrowheads, and hearty kimchi from vendors? In our experience these things are generally handled in direct player-to-player interactions, or via tradebots, as vendors frequently clear their inventory. This change doesn't impact that interaction at all.

[sarnsereg]

personally.. this shouldn't have to come to this. the changes to buy/sell rates should have balanced this kind of thing out when you made the changes to them.

my suggestion is probably a lot more tedious work on the coders part.. but lower the value of these crafted items. make it so you can't profit from tradeskill items.

i feel this is a simpler way for the players. this way say you start with 100,000 pyreals on a character. after the first set the macro runs you can sell back.. but you end up with max 80,000 pyreals back. this means you can never get ahead, thus. you could supply your mule with enough to kep going say overnight or while at work.

then combine that with the rewards from NPC's and everyone should be happy. if you need to macro to level your mule then you can without it being completely worthless. otherwise you spen a ton on the supplies then end up dumping them on the ground.

[khonda]

I'm still not understanding the angst over this issue? From my perspective, a trades character has *never* been self sufficient.

How is generating MMD notes a form of self sufficiency? The character/mule will still never be able to advance beyond money making, the only result is MMD notes for the rest of the characters on the account... I suppose if a player's character was designed as a trade character, not simply a mule, I could see how this would destroy their livelyhood.

But in all my time, I have never met another player who had tradeskills as a main focus of their character. I've known a few (2)who have cooking and archers who have fletching, but none have relied on tradeskills as a livelihood. Everyone else relegated tradeskills used mules. If there are people who do play pure trades characters, I do sincerely apologize, I have never encountered any, and honestly did not know they existed.

Disclaimer: My main character, has had all the tradeskills trained since creation, in November '99. Personally, my character will be impacted by this change, but I am not representative of everyone.

[Chazcon]

Excellent idea.

I feel that crafters should have a more necessary role in the game as part of the community. Perhaps truly useful items that can ONLY be obtained by crafting. Look how valuable Tinkerers are now. I'd love to see crafters (Alchemy, Cooking, Fletching, Lockpick skills) become just as important eventually.

Really enjoying the new changes since Turbine took over.

[Gouru]

Ibn, thanks for that clarification. That eases a bit of the pain I'm feeling. I'll withhold judgement on that area until I see more details, I'm real curious as to what you all will feel is 'reasonable' in terms of timers, xp and pyreal.

I've been thinking about why I feel as strongly as I do. It takes me by surprise as well. I think I understand it better and will post later (when I'm not supposed to be working) a more complete thought.

Bottom line is I love crafting characters as much as I do my mage. Alcam Bakeur is not my main toon, but she is my favorite character, and I've been discouraged seeing her become more and more useless with time. She doesn't money macro so at one level this announcement should have had no affect on me. However, this announcement affected me stronger than the life drain nerfs which basically forced me to reroll my main, and actually become a war mage instead of a life mage (before the stat redistribution days...) I was already hurting over the changes that nerfed the few good foods cooks had left (more details later) and this change brought out the anger that I was surpressing over that.

Khonda - Alcam is a cook. She is proud of her Iron Chef title, she is upset that the chef hat she got for it is tradeable and wearable by non-cooks. She would get VERY upset if you referred to her as a 'mule'. Yes, trade characters exist in the game.

[Gafoon]

Originaly posted by Ibn

Do players frequently buy THEs, deadly elemental arrowheads, and hearty kimchi from vendors? In our experience these things are generally handled in direct player-to-player interactions, or via tradebots, as vendors frequently clear their inventory. This change doesn't impact that interaction at all.


I think that one of the major issues here is that players no longer have a reason to buy hearty kimchi. The new potions are superior to hearty kimchi.

So you've removed one of the ways that cook characters provide value to the game, and thus lessened the value of their services.

There was a time when we'd go on a binge and make hundreds (or thousands) of pizzas etc for our allegiance. But now there's no call for that, since people are just buying potions.

[pacesetter]

note that I am against money macro. for me anyway.

my high level mages stay broke and are supported alot by my little archers! plat cost suxors! that's why the macros for them!

for the other macros it seems to me to be greed. however, since that is the way the best way to increase your skill to a usable level, many will do it for this reason too. in this light it makes sense to sell it back as you go.

I just created a tinker and a trader with my 6th slots. (only to get another nerf? doesn't seem right)

you finally got the message that you do not have to nerf us for DT, now get the message that you do not have to nerf us for verdantine!!

I can understand your problem but you take away our main way to get more supplies and get rid of excess that we make at the same time. the npc's are a make-over for an ugly situation, but with a timer this can require a facelift instead. how long is the timer? how much can we trade back at one time? is the xp worth it to keep our trades guys?

it is already hard enough to get to a level where you can be useful!!

I use bow to level my trader and tinker so I can make the xp for the trade and tink skills, but there is a cap on this as you must eventually stop pouring xp into attack and defense skills and raise what ya came for.

ya done good so far overall so I'll wait and see before I delete em for usable chars or make em mules but plan well or as usual you will hurt the 90% for the 10%.

[khonda]

Gouru,

I did and do apologize. My main character, Angry peasant, has all 3 tradeskills, 4 if you count lockpick. He is still my main, I have acquired all 3 tradeskill hats of my own accord, and created a composite crossbow from scratch, with no one else's help.

I do know what the life of a trades character is, I've been one since retail release. And while, I have never met another who has made a playable trades character, that does not rule out their existance, I made sure I put that the apology in my post. The apology was not facetious.

However, I still believe that this move should not have a large impact outside of money macroes.



edits for poor grammar (poor spelling remains)

[Ally]

Sounds like a good interim fix to me if these macros can cause server performance issues.

My main character on TD server is a trade skill character created 12/99. I have always had plenty of cash from hunting with this character (bow skill). I would imagine the money-macro trade-skill characters are producing cash for players who primarily play mage characters (burn alot of plats) or people who use plats as a barter medium.

Why do players use money-macros? I never really understood the need when so much loot is available.

[GKusnick]

Originally posted by Ibn
Do players frequently buy THEs, deadly elemental arrowheads, and hearty kimchi from vendors? In our experience these things are generally handled in direct player-to-player interactions, or via tradebots, as vendors frequently clear their inventory.That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. By declaring NPC sales marginal in order to justify nerfing them, you guarantee that they remain marginal. This has been the pattern for a long time, so it's no surprise that the NPC economy is stagnant with respect to player-crafted goods. What I was hoping was that you'd find some way to turn that around, instead of throwing up your hands and driving the final nail into the coffin. As I've said before, a demand-driven pricing scheme would be one way to re-involve NPCs in the player economy without opening the door to unlimited money macroing.

Originally posted by khonda
How is generating MMD notes a form of self sufficiency?Because you can take them to the casino and turn them into XP. I leveled up my crafting toon this way, using only the profits I made from selling crafted goods to NPCs. Now that sort of thing will no longer be possible.

[sandman]

I'll have to agree with the players that understand that these days casino runs ARE a viable way to level a crafting character. I created a new dagger toon when the 6th slot opened last month. Aside from some minor hunting west of Holt towards the casino, all of his xp has been from trophy turn ins off my main's casino runs. In fact once my dagger alt reaches level 30 he'll be the one making the runs so he can turn in the mnemosynes also.

[pacesetter]

Originally posted by Ibn
Do players frequently buy THEs, deadly elemental arrowheads, and hearty kimchi from vendors? In our experience these things are generally handled in direct player-to-player interactions, or via tradebots, as vendors frequently clear their inventory. This change doesn't impact that interaction at all.


think about it for a minute ibn. is it worth it now for us to make and sell this stuff to vendors?? what do we get out of it?? not enuf, except for those that money macro! those who have trades guys have em mostly for their own use and their vassals or allegiance. this is not really a choice in the way the game has evolved. trade bots take the excess to market for those that have and use trade bots to rid the excess. we can't level a trade guy effectively without hunting him, you took that away with the xp nerf, so we have to hunt rather than clap for hours.

yes I used to get arrows, heads, foods and potions from the venders but not anymore. it takes too much other activity for the trades guys to level now.

/e remembers the cook-offs, recipe contests, trade guys outside town who would dye your armor for free, the rith potion god who would line the square with potions, the GW guy who would give potions and food away then sell the excess to npc's there, etc.

your statements are a cop-out because nothing has really been done to get the trades back into the game.

[Mr_Fred]

I'm failing to understand what is making people so upset.

You have a multitude of "pacifist" characters that are crying that they can't make money for themselves.


Mmmk...so let me break this down for myself here in type.

If you are a pacifist, and you want to live your AC life, not killing monsters. Why exactly do you need money on the character again?

What do you buy with money:

Comps

Weapons from a shop

Armor from a shop


Why do you need weapons and armor if you have no intention on killing anything?

Why do you even need comps? To portal around...?

I'm pretty sure it's extremely hard to use your craft skills from character creation to get up into the range of casting spells...which you would need money to buy comps for.





To me...something isn't adding up.

To me...it looks like there's a lot of people whining over not being able to get ahead by some exploit. Yes. It's a nerf. Nerf's aren't generally the way to go. This is minor on everyone's day to day lives though.


Maybe I see it the way it really is...maybe I don't.

[Farat]

Hmmmmm I'm thinking this is a bit of overkill. While I understand their desire to prevent money macroing, what they have done here is essentially remove yet one more element of ROLE PLAY from the game. If a person want's to have a toon that is a trader, that works their skill up slowly (not REALLY my style but I can see the appeal to some) they can no longer do this. You can't make anything at early levels that other players will buy from you, and you can't seel anything that you make yourself to vendors, so that you have the cash to make more. So essentially ALL trade toons MUST now be able to fight. Kinda sucks from the role play aspect of the game. I think Turbine is losing sight of an entire class of players.

[Ally]

Use of casino to level any kind of character doesn't seem all that efficient to me since it literally costs a fortune to accumulate the xp trophy items UNLESS you are using UNattended money macros to generate the cash. Given the state of xp/loot available from hunting..even with a gimped trade-skill character (which i've played as my main for years) there is no need to money macro.

The point is that the macros are causing gameplay issues for the servers and other players, not that this is the ONLY viable way to level a trade character. It's an unnecessary shortcut for a few that may cause negative experiences for the many.

Devs...reduce the cost of platinum scarabs. Plats aren't huge plasma screen televisions ...they're CD's. Price should come down.

[kgober]

Originally posted by khonda
However, I still believe that this move should not have a large impact outside of money macroes.

I also believe this change *should* not have a large impact outside of money macros.

unfortunately, I also believe that this change *will* have an impact. we've seen plenty of promises in the past that got pushed out a few months due to higher priorities, then back-burnered over some other issue, then eventually they're either forgotten or the claim is made that such things were never intended anyway.

I'm fully confident that the trades will get some love at low levels. but I also think it likely that the mid and high level tradeskill love will get pushed back, month after month, due to higher priorities. they're only tradeskills, after all. it's not like they're actually *important* or anything.

turbine has a long list of things that 'need' doing, yet they're never important enough to actually do. I don't fault them for this; they have finite resources and a very long to-do list. it's reasonable and normal to devote your resources to the highest-priority projects.

that's why at this point, I prefer action over promises. we have an immediate loss, along with promises of future compensation. to be frank, I've heard promises of 'future compensation' before. they're actually promises to put your problems on the to-do list, where they can slowly sink into oblivion.

-ken

[Sangria]

This is just another instance where the players brought it on themselves.

Turbine has been trying to send soft little hints - THEY MADE APPLESAUSE WORTHLESS - HELLO??????

Did the macroers take the hint? No.

So Turbine had no choice but to take it to the next level. Just like everything else.

it gets old trying to get to a vender and have your PC lag out because of all the bots macroing.

OMFG - i just had a thought.... People might actually have to play the game to get anywhere!!!!! What a freakish concept!!!

[Hosagi]

someone please explain to me how my tradeskills mule macro'ing cash ruins another pesons game play i fail to see the point in the nerf

[kgober]

turbine should stop with the 'hints' then.

if they want to change their policy from 'tradeskills should be profitable, just not *too* profitable' they can simply say so. until now, the 'official' position on tradeskill profitability (from before Ibn's time) was that the profitability was ok as long as it wasn't excessive.

remember that survey Turbine/MS undertook way back when? the one that revealed that people are generally anti UCM, but didn't mind trade macros so much, or third party apps in general?

apparently player opinions have changed. while I wasn't looking, there must have been a survey taken where the majority of the players agreed that it's inappropriate for people to macro tradeskills for profit.

-ken

[-D-W-]

Ibn,

and the rest of the live team.


This is a bad idea. A really bad idea. The appeal of this game is that there are options. I believe that this change will limit options and provide very little that is positive.

I am assuming that this is just a method to address the excessive automation in this game. If this is the case, then cut to the chase and just ban money macros.

If you don't want macros, BAN THEM!

What is the benefit of this change?
I only see problems with money macros. They can affect the economy and seeing automatons clapping can be an eyesore.

Will it change the economy? No. When I can make 10 plats in one buff cycle hunting, and make 12-20 million xp, eliminating money macros will not change the economy at all.

So, you are going to change this game in a very fundamental manner to address an eyesore? Frankly, Machine's armor is much more of an eyesore (Hi Machine :D ).

Stop trying to make this game homogenous. We will always complain about each other. That is our nature.


==========================================

EDIT

Fundamentally, next month we all want to still be able to do the things I was able to do last month.

So, unless something truly affects the game in a negative manner, don't change it.

I really don't think money macros fit this criteria. The loot changes have already made them irrelevant. Only the people who refuse to hunt still run them. Hunting is far more profitable.

[Midnight]

Point one: Just one less reason to be a tradeskiller. I have a really really hard time believing that tradeskillers will *EVER* be a viable non-hunting non-vassal-pimping character type.

Point Two: When did lockpicking cease to be a tradeskill? Granted, we may not sell much, but *if* the new tradeskill quests make it viable to be a non-hunter non-vassal-pimper, then lockpick shouldn't be left out of the love.

[Hamfast]

I stubbed my toe, let’s cut off my leg at the hip...

A Jeweler takes gold and a few gems, spends some time making a ring, then sells the ring for more then the value of the gold and gems...

A Baker takes Flour, water and some other ingredients, combines them in a set order, and sells the resulting Cake for more then the cost of the ingredients...

my Cooking Tradesman buys several different items from a vendor, uses some tools that I have already bought and paid for to combine them in a set order then sells the resulting item back to the NPC for a bit of profit... enough to buy more items, combine them, and create another item that could be sold to the vendor... some times I fail, but that is what my profit is for...

You want to do the Crafters a favor? Let’s have the NPC's only sell ingredients in unlimited quantities, not end items... Crafters then make the end items and sell them back to the NPC's, the NPC's can only sell the end items they have purchased...

The cost of the ingredients should be slightly less then the value of the end item (a wee bit of profit to cover losses) then they can sell the end items for how ever much... the players that need the end items can thank the crafters for making them by purchasing them from the vendors...

Want to add a twist to the idea, and then if a Vendor has a number of end items that exceeds a set value, he lowers how much he will pay for the item...

Let’s take the end item "Apple Pie"

Flour (5py) + Water (2py) = Dough + Apple (10 py) = Apple Pie (22py) (Cost to make is 17 py)
Vendor Pays 20 Py for the first 100, then drops to 19 py to 200 and so on... Diminishing returns to a point the Trade Mule is losing money...vendor still sells all the pies at 22py, but pays less and less as his inventory fills...

A Player in need of Stamina items opens the vendor looking for meat pies, but only has apple, buys 20 and moves on, price to the tradesman jumps up... until the restocking is done...

Tradesman switches to Chicken Pies...
Flour (5py) + Water (2py) = Dough + Chicken part (45/3) - Chicken Pie (30 Py) (Cost is 22 py)
Vendor pays 25py, sells for 30 py, drops price by 2 py for each 100 pies in the inventory

There, simple way to make the "Players" responsible for what the vendors can sell... because why should I buy 50 Apple Pies from a Tradesman when I can get 50 Stamina potions from every healer in the land, the weigh less, cost less and do more... no longer a real "Money making deal" face it.

The Apple Pies - Spend 1700 py to make each 100 pies... perhaps we can make it (without taking failures into account) 1700 to make 2000, then 1700 to make 1900, 1700 to make 1800, 1700 to make 1700, 1700 to make 1600, 1700 to make 1500 (any profit is gone after 600 pies) and 3 or 4 Cooks supplying 1 vendor will run out of profit very fast, because the vendor will purchase due to it's current inventory...

[Jinnsman]

Personally, I could care less if there is a resale value on crafted items. As it currently exists today, the ROI is so small as to make sales to NPC's a rediculous proposition to the casual tradesperson. Therefore, those who are crying about the change must (a) be resistent to change, (b) feel the need to whine, (c) or macro 24/7 to make a measurable profit.

If you fall into category (a), Wake Up! This is Asheron's Call, it changes every month and has since beta! Change is why we stay here, remember?!!

For those in category (b), whine away if it makes you feel better! I like whining too and am currently crying about the holding bridge change (see the thread elsewhere on this forum for more on that...).

For those in category (c). Get a life. There are other ways to make money. Macroing anyting is an exploit and therefore subject to being nerfed. Enjoy the moment and then shut up and accept the nerf when it happens.

I see no valid reason for this change to even be discussed. The only people truely impacted by the change are those macroing, and while I have no problem with macroing (heaven knows i have enough plats thanks to the spike macro) it is something subject to being nerfed and there is no valid argument against the nerf.

[pacesetter]

Originally posted by Mr_Fred
I'm failing to understand what is making people so upset.

You have a multitude of "pacifist" characters that are crying that they can't make money for themselves.


Mmmk...so let me break this down for myself here in type.

If you are a pacifist, and you want to live your AC life, not killing monsters. Why exactly do you need money on the character again?

What do you buy with money:

Comps

Weapons from a shop

Armor from a shop


Why do you need weapons and armor if you have no intention on killing anything?

Why do you even need comps? To portal around...?

I'm pretty sure it's extremely hard to use your craft skills from character creation to get up into the range of casting spells...which you would need money to buy comps for.





To me...something isn't adding up.

To me...it looks like there's a lot of people whining over not being able to get ahead by some exploit. Yes. It's a nerf. Nerf's aren't generally the way to go. This is minor on everyone's day to day lives though.


Maybe I see it the way it really is...maybe I don't.



tell that to the lower level archers in your guild when they need arrows or your people who want trade potions, rations or ingots made.

we simply want viable characters without getting nerfed due to the few who exploit.

if ya read most of the posts are not whining about not being able to money macro. it's just another kick in the pants for the good guys rather than doing something like bans, or whatever for the bad guys.

[zebulon]

you have to be kidding.applesauce and potions????..give me a break. you guys are going way to far..long term intrest??? the long term intrest of the game is to make money.if the devs keep taking all the fun things outta our paid service,we will find somewhere that does not..opening of new server plz..thats so programmers can try to make more money by having more room for subscribers. i do not believe it happened..what kinda idiot cares if someone wants to make and sell applesauce..maybe thats what he paid his 13 bucks above internet to do..leave him alone..ppl need to worry more about what they are doing instead of what others are doing..and devs plz quit urinating on my leg and tell me its raining..

[Ogz]

thank you for probably making cooking as useless as assess person or assess monster.

I hope you get the rewards/timers right.. noob chefs are going to be sore after this.

I agree money macro's need to be fixed - but why not make a real economy.. ie: a vendor only buys so much of a given product per x hours and make x random so people can't macro it. sure thats alot of work.. but so is this half-baked idea. noobs cant sell the potions they get as rewards from say, banderling scalps now.. so they lose out on that significant source of cash.. and well.. im sure there's a bunch of things i'm missing.

you're removing the variety from the game.. making it less complex.. and I believe that complexity is what keeps people coming back.. (me too).

reducing the game to the lowest common denominator is the surest way to kill it.

[Insane Iggy]

This is a great change and one that has been needed for a long timeJH

[Mewick]

To Ibn and the other devs:
I rarely post to the boards, and don't normally get upset about patches or future patches, but this has got to be one of the most asinine changes that has ever been proposed ! ! !
When I was a youngster in Dereth (circa Nov2000) life was hard, and low level monsters did not often cooperate by dropping "phat l77t" (in dude-ese language). I often had to pay my way by crafting items and selling to the vendors in my hometown (Yanshi !!!) Have things changed so much for youngsters today? (am referring to those who play to enjoy the game, not those who go from level 1 to level 100 in 5 days, although if that's what they want to do, that's there choice, doesn't bother me)
Has Dereth become the land of milk and honey, where all the streets are paved in gold? And a youngster just has to walk into the closest town, to be showered with wealth beyond belief by the inhabitants?
..........................I thought not.....................

Crafting and selling has been an integral part of AC since it began. This is one of those things that made and make AC such a wonderfully diverse game to play. It's worked for the last 3 years......PLEASE, IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T TRY TO FIX IT ! ! !

[Siege]

OK the macros have gotten out of hand, and yes you make WAY more hunting and looting than you did before.

I don't see this as a fix, but I do like the xp rewards for the trade-crafted items, however the xp rewards to trade chars are rediculously pathetic. Only true way to level a trade char is to have vassels and leech or actually hunt. Hunting is not very viable because to make an effective trademule you need 100 coord and 100 focus to max out, and I see taking weapon skills on trademules a waste of skill credits. Ok now I'm rambling.

Point is if you want players to have trademules, you need to give them an incentive for actually making one. You're taking away the need for trademules. Especially with the new stam and health poitions. Loot generated have become better than what you can make.

Lets take all the things you need a trademule for. First things come to mind our the stam rations and health potions. You can loot better ones now. And buy fairly close ones.

Quest items:

Ingots and D ingots are needed but unless you take you're mule out hunting or have vassels, not gonna have a high enogh skill to make the preferred items.

Impious Staff, anyone even use this anymore? and I don't think it even has a skill check anymore. In other words useless compared to what we have/loot now.

Strings for composite bows/xbows - again useless, yes its non-drop but even for a noob missle char way under powered to be even considered.

Dyeing - useful, but to dye high AL armor need a high cooking skill

Thats all off the top of my head I can think of. And another note from what I've seen from past "fixes" you're going to do it anyway then try to fix it later. So why even ask the players.
(think of the debuff armor "fix," you did it anyway regardless to what everyone on Darktide posted about it)

[Hamfast]

From the letter:
In addition, we recently had an incident in which one player’s use of multiple macroing characters on multiple accounts actually destabilized one of our game servers.

Are you sure you want to admit to this without also adding the rest of the information about it?

It does not seem like a complete picture of what caused the problem...

Here is a person paying for multiple accounts that when all are doing something, actually destabilized one of your game servers... something about this just does not sit well with me... if I set up accounts on all my PCs and try to play will I crash the servers? Do I need to make sure I have no more then 1 or 2 accounts playing per PC or do I even have to limit the number of PC's?

Me and my buddies have a big AC party at my house, we set up all our PC's and go on a quest do I have to worry that the 8 of us will actually destabilized one of the game servers? or should I only worry if they bring their girl friends (ok, we are geeks, add the Girl friends we still only have 8, but I can dream)...

There is more to this story that is not being told...

[Gouru]

Okay...why was I upset?

It was NOT about nerfing money macros. I can live with that. Money DOES grow on trees for the new player today, a D note for looting everything in a single run through drudge hideout. The money macros of today are NOT ruining the economy, but if rather than ban a user who abused the system and crashed the servers you would rather remove all money macros it won't affect me. When I first started, money for new toons WAS hard to get, and making applesauce in Holtburg paid for my mains first set of chainmail. Now my challenge is to NOT buy the uber armor I keep seeing in the shops so I can experience more of a challenge.

What caused the outburst was I had already been holding in my anger on the last patch. Draughts with burden 5 for 10 stam, stam potions with burden 15 for 25 stam, tinctures with 60 stam for 50 burden. All better than what a cook can make. And this comes after Orions earlier statements that cooking was about stam, and that cooking love was on his list. Instead of love we were being give reason after reason that cooking was no longer a valid skill.

Add this announcement to pent up anger, and I burst.

So what is wrong with cooking today?

Actually, it's very simple. It's call 'burden'.

The absolute best restore/burden ratio you can get is with Gingerbread drudges that require a rare component (ginger) and 200 skill to make. 15 burden restore 50 stam. If Ginger wasn't so rare and you could make more than one of these per plant, it would be a useful food.

Closely behind these are chocolate bars at 35 stam for 20 burden units. Beans are not as rare as ginger, but this is still a very limited item, and only marginally better than a stam potion at 15bu for 25 stam. Slightly worse than this is Hearty Hot Kimchi and Hearty Cake, which both require Alchemy as well as cooking. Just behind them is Hearty Green tea Ice cream.

All other foods are less efficient and generally worse than what you can buy at any healers.

So Ibn, I'm not gonna ask for you implement the full cooking love you've got planned, but rather something to make the cooks a little more useful.

There are a huge number of foods that COULD be changed, and I know that time would be way more than worth spending. But how about a few foods we could make.

Raise the restore on a Grilled Cheese sandwich to 25, this would make it equivalent to a stam potion. It would still require 100 skill to make with 50% success.

Make Apple Juice and Carrot Cake Burden 5. They currently restore 10 and this would make them equivalent to a health draught and be fairly easy to make with a 20 skill.

Drop the burden on Cragstonanoff to 40. It restores 55 and requires a 250 skill to make and would become a good alternative to stam elixirs.

Those 4 foods would provide reasonable stam alternative for low, medium and medium high characters, and I cannot see how they would unbalance the game.

Then, as time permits, start adjusting some other burdens and restorations. Make foods that require rare ingredients much better than they are, or use the Alchemy gem dynamic to make more raw ingredients from the rare drop (ie. Grinding ginger makes 40 portions of ground ginger, whatever makes sense quantity wise). Gingerbread is GREAT stam food, but so rare as to be useless. Raise it's difficulty to 300, make grinding ginger more efficient and we'd have a truly expert food that we COULD sell in marketplace.

Really we don't need a whole lot. Just a reason to exist.

With your current ideas on being able to level through crafting you would have a crafting dynamic that could work now and into the future.

[Yusuki]

I'm not sure why making everything unsellable is the only reasonable fix. Why not just make the vendors in any given town not buy crafted products from the items sold in that town? Or make the vendors not buy anything they have in inventory, crafting-wise, and put the crafted items in their stock?

Example: If someone in Yaraq sells apples, nobody in town buys applesauce, apple pies, or apple anything. Anyone that wants applesauce can just buy it from the apple guy, because he has an infinite amount of apples. However, one town over in Samsur (for example), they'll be happy to buy applesauce because nobody in town sells apples. This method would take a bit more work, sure, but it's doable, and the crafters that sell their wares to do more crafting should be happy. It'll limit some inventories for some items, but that's a far better solution than completely stripping crafter selling abilities.

And as has been stated before, if this stops working, folks that do this will just switch to something else. Ever check the chests in the Academy? Nice loot there, no combat required, and a decent pathing macro can jog to newbie towns because nothing aggros from the outpost to downtown. Going to make all that loot unsellable next?

I agree and applaud the sentiment, but I'm somewhat dubious about the execution. I cannot believe this is the best result considered.

[Hosagi]

Originally posted by Jinnsman
For those in category (c). Get a life. There are other ways to make money. Macroing anyting is an exploit and therefore subject to being nerfed. Enjoy the moment and then shut up and accept the nerf when it happens.

I see no valid reason for this change to even be discussed. The only people truely impacted by the change are those macroing, and while I have no problem with macroing (heaven knows i have enough plats thanks to the spike macro) it is something subject to being nerfed and there is no valid argument against the nerf.
Just because you dont like it doesnt mean its a cheat
Just becasue you say so doesnt make it an exploit
you want a reason they should be left the way they are? go to a new server and w/o taking on a patron try leveling up an archer w/ the use of a trade skills mule then come back and say that there needs to be a nerf
A true tradeskills mule can not go out and hunt for cash cause it has no skill points to put in a weapon and it has no xp to put in the racial skills cause all the xp it makes needs to go into the trade skills w/ this nerf no one will be able to make a true tradeskills mule on the new server which means you wont get your precious tinkered armor
see the nerf doesnt just affect the tradeskills it affects EVERYONE if a player is discouraged to make a tradeskills mule on VT that means theres 1 less tinkerbot for someone to go to for their amror to be tinkered

[Tuff Howard]

I must agree with Gouru on this one
from my point of view (a non cook ) if a cook could make items that are better than anything bought from a vendor I would definitely look into obtaining that item.
Field rations are useless to me solely on the burden issue.
To make cooks viable they must be able to be useful ,they have not been for a long time except as an adornment for
foods that weren't available to buy ,but pretty much useless to other chars.
Plz give them love but let them earn their way by plying their trade.
Chars. with weapon skills earn their way by hunting let the cooks earn their way by cooking !!!!!!!!!

[anselgrey]

Was talking to some people about it and one was upset because he said that Ibn had mentioned that they were discussing and maybe implementing where all loot obtained from monsters (not just those that could be crafted-arrows, potions, etc) could not be sold to NPCs.

I looked, we argued. I didn't see it and personally it made no sense to me since how would we get money for comps and what the heck would most NPC's be for. And why would they bother revamping sell back rates for some NPC and making candeth keep.

The guy gave me this link and told me I obviously overlooked it.

DID I???????

[Gouru]

Ibn most definitely did NOT say it.

I did. And I never put sarcasm tags around my sarcasm. If people don't see it then oh well.

The discussion was about nerfing the money macros because of the impact they would have on the VT economy. I pointed out that if it was impact that was the problem, selling loot had MUCH more economy impact, and if that was the reason for getting rid of money macros, it only makes sense to get rid of loot selling to.
Good macros today make what? An couple M a day?

A 20 minute run for a lvl 7 toon from top to bottom of Drudge Hideout nets a D note... Which is more damaging?

[Seti]

As I understand it, the underlying reason behind this decision is to enforce the mantra of stopping unattented macroing for profit (there go tradebots!). So the task at hand is to find a way to let an "active" player keep these game features while "gimping" the macroers ability to take advantage of the same. No small task, but we have an entire community willing to brainstorm to save their chefs, fletchers, and apothecaries if we were just asked. Well asked or not, here are a few suggestions of mine:

1. I prefer the "active economy" suggestion where the prices an NPC buys items for changes based on volumes sold. This method doesn't require the NPC to keep the items in inventory, just track the number sold (this could be either per NPC or Dereth-wide). The "active" player merely adds the laws of supply and demand into their decision of what to make, select a tradeskill task accordingly, and away they go. A macroer won't have as much luck. Creating and dumping any large volume of crafted item over time will quickly depress the economy and eliminate any profit to be made. I think some of this code even exists, since we once had a "spell economy" that operated on a similar supply/demand basis.

2. What about implementing sell limits based on a quest timer? If a character can only sell 100 apple pies per 24 hours then an "active" tradeskill character can sell those 100 and go to another food item. Macros are only good at repeating the same steps over and over again, they have no ability to switch foods on the fly, so this would effectively kill them.

3. In case the macroes DO manage to circumvent the suggestion above, what if it's doubled with a limit of items that they can sell per NPC/town? The "active" player can simply move to the next NPC/town, while the macroer...?

4. What about changing the items an NPC/town buys so they do not correspond to what they sell? If an NPC/town sells apples but will not buy applesauce or apple pies, the "active" player can simply go to the NPC/town that does. the Macroer doesn't have it so nice. He has to stock up large volumes of ingredients from the 1st NPC/town and macro at the 2nd (remember, foodstuffs are HEAVY, and what stocks they can carry won't last for long). At the least, this will force a more "active" role in item creation than a macro can easily emulate, forcing many an "all-day/night" macroer to call it quits.

5. Not my favorite solution, since it doesn't stop them at all, but why not simply raise the buy prices in the isolated vendors from outlying areas (the old newbie starter town areas come to mind). If profit is their motive, they will move to the remote areas. Yes, they may still be "doing their thing", but at least it's away from where the "active" players are. As long as they are out of they way, and I can bury their profit making a loot run, let those macroers knock themselves out.

Sadly, none of these solutions lets us keep things as they are, but it's apparent that at this point the few bad apples have spoiled it for the rest of us. The choice before us now is what we are willing to choose/do/give to keep tradeskills viable (which isn't very, I'll admit). If it's a choice on what to give up, then my vote is for giving up some of the convenience, not giving up the tradeskill characters ability to "trade".

Is anyone listening?

PS And while we are making things harder to do, it would only make sense that you would get more xp for a more difficult process.

[Tyrion]

My only comment.... It's about time.

[Apex_Universe]

To all those who do money macro... tough beans... This is a brilliant move by the admins... BUT... as for as cooking skills go... I think that they should make cooking skill much more usefull...

My suggestion for this is that cooks should be able to make a brew that alchy's can apply to stones as an alternative to arcane magic and buffing so people can make more extreme characters and be self sufficient. It would be great trading at the markplace too!!!

[Megabyte]

So just ingore anybody that play's cooking as a skill. There is alot of toons out there that play with cooking for fun. Selling back what you make with a little profit makes the toon self supporting so you can keep playing around. Yes, you have a problem with macros but taking the sell back out of it seems like a quick fix to take care of your headache at our cost. There is no need to make a grilled cheese sandwich expect for playing around. So when I make my next one I have to sit it on the ground? I'm not taking it hunting (it heavy and restore hardly nothing) and I surely can't sell it to someone else. Give other rewards instead of money. Example... 20 fish stews would yeild a trade health (something with can trade) or a little xp..

Bring the skill back to life and dont kill it.........

[Protes]

"To assist these characters, in the June event we will begin introducing new NPCs similar to the Glenden Wood pacifists. These NPCs will provide pyreal and experience rewards to characters for handing in specific crafted goods. These rewards will be on a timer so that they cannot be macroed."

What will be the timer on turning in crafted goods?

I'm hoping it will be a no more than 24 hours. Often when I do hunt with trades/tinker characters I sellback the potions and/or arrows that are left over so I can keep the burden low for muling back the items I stored away for hunting. Storage and packspace still remains a big issue for me, and having to hold onto the excess equipment because of the changes will be a major pain.
I suppose a 24 timer or less in turning crafted goods into a NPC won't be that bad, but I am opposed to if the timer is longer.

[Tzeentch]

We, cooks, need to be useful again. We are not asking for much for the past year or so.

[AnotherDude]

GKusnick said:

While I agree that it's necessary to curb money macros, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. This change effectively divorces the NPC merchants from the player economy altogether. I would much rather see the opposite trend, in which NPC merchants are integrated more fully into the player economy through the use of demand-driven pricing.

Ideally, players should be able to sell their crafted items to NPCs for something near the going rate for those items in the player trade market. Overselling a single type of item should drive the price down, negating profits and putting money macros out of business. But intelligently crafting a variety of items to meet actual player demand should be rewarded by fair prices from NPCs. A crafter shouldn't have to set up a tradebot in Marketplace to sell their wares. The NPC merchants should be able to act as middlemen in these transactions.


That's a really, REALLY great idea. It makes churning out masses of a limited range of items fruitless (i.e. no money macroes), but for some items, makes crafting a great way to go. Its probably way WAY out of the tech, but it is a great idea. Thx.

Cheers.

[Yinchi]

I am not in favor of the all the clappers outside of the shops, it IS an eyesore. However, there has to be a better method that what is proposed.

We presently have access to high level tradespeople on our servers. But with the coming of a new server, I can see the timing of this is poor.

What incentive is there to make a tradeskill person? Crafting needs to be a viable part of our game. There has never been a way for them to level other than to BE leveled. I remember the old days of getting a few levels by IDing things.

Turbine needs to work on Crafting. Ban macroed trade characters, they are easy to spot. But give some incentive to people to try Crafting.

[nd10]

It is the first step toward making crafting chars accessable and/or viable to new players.

any char that requires a macro for advancement is dead to any player new 2 the game.

IF they stick with this change:

1) they can completely remove all the tedium and time consumption from all crafting interactions!

previously the tedium and time consumption was the limiting factor, now, since selling at a profit will require a player interaction, there is no need for the tedious load, craft, move, load, craft, move, switch bag ad neauseum.

the devs have stated they want to give salvaging a makeover, to make it less tedious, that would be a perfect time to makeover crafting interactions as well!

Imagine, being able 2 craft all the items u need at the moment u need them, guild need x the's? boom, done. No more sore wrists, no mas accursed macros.

2) fewer interactions per crafted item = lighter server load... don't pass that up...

I left Darktide (and thus, ac all together) just under 2yrs ago because of all the hacking/exploiting/macroing/chaining/server attacks/yadda yadda yadda, I decided 2 come back when I heard they were putting in almost all the changes I wanted before i quit.

so whenever i hear the devs say

"MaCrO's R BAD MMMKAAYYYYY"

I feel a happy glow :)

and I recommend the game again 2 my friends and tell them they should give it a shot If the new server ever opens.


thx

[Snorungen]

There have been so many posts in this thread trying to imply that crafting will be useless with these changes. Do you even play the game? Fletch and alchy is essential for archers, tinked armor is something people use....I applaud you turbine! A larger fraction of the server population will be people instead of bots! if you could just get rid of the most heinous exp-macroers everything would be just fine...

[SNY]

As a current money macroer, I have a few questions/comments, and alternate proposed solutions regarding the coming changes.

The recent loot changes have improved character money intake far above what one can acquire macroing. Speaking more from a higher level perspective, it is possible to acquire 5-6 MMD notes in 2 buff rounds – your mileage may vary. Your team did an excellent job in reducing the trade macro output last patch. Since I write my own macros, I investigated many alternate macro solutions after your changes. There are only a few left in any trade interaction that will produce between 60-70 plats per 24 hour period. This is not a large sum of plats, since you can burn 30 plats easily in several hunting rounds. I understand that you want to cover yourself for future exploits when game additions are made, but with some research and planning you can eliminate the macros with buy/sell rate changes without punishing the player base.

As a previous game developer and programmer, I learned a valuable lesson a long time ago that cost me many hours of programming and forum discussions: When going after a problem/bug/exploit, you go for the easiest and most reasonable fix, but you never “ever” make game degrading changes, interim or otherwise, as a solution. It causes customer retaliation and forum flames. You additionally bring old “non-posting” players to the forums such as this post. I hope you take my word on this, and share it with the AC team.

Having been involved with AC for 4+ years with several accounts containing high level mage characters, it is convenient for me, to offset plat consumption by macroing. Although this is a luxury I can certainly live without, it is additionally entertaining for me to write and update these scripts. Being more trade driven, items/salvage, etc, AC does not have a strong money economy. What is the main purpose behind ‘completely’ eliminating these types of macros? Why is this necessary?

I realize when the new server is brought online, you want an even playing field for everyone. If you want to prevent starting characters on this server from macroing money initially, a simple solution would be to increase all tradeskill failure percentages that have to do with making any type of healing item. I don’t know how you have this programmed, but you have to have a global associated with this type of crafting – increase it 50 points. Just a few failures will stop the macro’s profits to the point where it is useless to use until higher levels. Most people will opt for store bought potions until later in level anyway, and will not be able to make large sums of plats that they would be unable to generate under normal conditions.

I would like to mention another reason that I macro and write code for that purpose. I do it for lack of content. At this point in time, it is more entertaining for me to write and update macro code, then to play the game. I guarantee if you put more content in the game, you will see me playing more and macroing less. I can speak for 2 real life friends in this respect also. I have been hanging on to this game for the last 6 months, that has been slowly loosing its luster, waiting for some interesting changes to be implemented. I have seen some good things in the making that are somewhat transparent on the surface, but I can see where it is going.

In summery, I think you guys are doing an ok job, but my suggestion to you would be to deal with content issues rather then dedicating considerable resources on small issues such as this. You have addressed these types of macros already, and reduced their effectiveness. There is no reason to continue on the same avenue, since your coming sellback changes will not stop the money macros – trust me on this. If these changes are implemented, please do it in such a fashion as to not disrupt the trade buy/sell ability. Options are what make this game attractive - the more options you remove from the player, the more stale it becomes. The destabilization of the server you mentioned must have been an isolated incident, or you needed a primer to justify the need for these changes. You will never convince me that a group of macroers, under normal circumstances, destabilized a proper operating server. Regardless, I do respect the team’s decision on these changes, but I only ask that you consider what I have mentioned. Thank you for your time.

[Flynn]

I'd be surprised if the timer needs to be any longer than an hour, that's more than enough to stop macroers.

One question though- how will these NPCs know that the player handing them the items was the one that crafted them? Probably not a problem initially, but later on, what's stopping me crafting a 500,000xp item on my trades character, and giving it to a level 1 player to hand in?

[Bunyun]

One question that was asked and has not been addressed is what about all the food items you win at the casino?

When I gamble I sell back all that I win to reduce my loses. This fix is a slight nerf to the already overly nerfed casinos.

[Hamfast]

I just thought of another silly little thing... this idea will sure help repopulate towns, the only characters that are currently in towns will soon be leaving... why stay where your not wanted...

[KsBabe]

I have to say this bites! I dont macro for profit, I only use it at times to make potions for arrows, then I use my main to apply the potions to make deadly arrows. My fletching is higher than my mules and I can do it more efficently, but I have to ask one question, why not just sell deadly arrowheads at bowyers' shops and everything else that is needed? This way we can just get rid of our mules, other than the ones we use to hold the useless quest items that we get from doing a quest only to find out it is yet another piece of junk?
As one post ask, why did you just allow the selling back of arrowheads to vendors if you was just going to stop it a couple of months later?
I also would like to ask this question, if Turbine is so concerned with all the complaints and whining about what is wrong or should be fixed in the game, why not go after what everyone complains about, lag? This should be the biggest problem that Turbine needs to address, not worrying about mules making items to sell.
I have learned one thing over my three years playing AC is that Turbine nerfs one thing, programmers just make another program to take its place.
Cooking is becoming a useless trade now, why have it in the game? Put up a NPC to dye armor for players and get rid of it altogether.
My daughter, who also plays AC, wants to know, what if a player dyes a piece of armor or even tinks it out and later on decides to sell it at a vendors, will it be sellable since it has been crafted by a mule or player? Or even an imbued item/weapon?
Come on Turbine, take care of bigger fish than nerfing cooking, get rid of the lag and maybe people will want to hunt more than stand at their house macro cooking because with lag so bad they cant hunt, they want to do get something out of their money they pay each month!

[Avaton]

Ultimately what is needed is the ability for players to consign goods to be sold by NPC vendors. For a fee of course. This would remove the need for a marketplace full of spamming (and often times vulgar) tradebots and if the consignment fee was handled right you would actually have LESS junk taking up space in your databases. Nobody with half a brain would be trying to sell a load of garbage that nobody wants and paying a fee to do it.
The way it is now there are many many tradebots in marketplace loaded with trash and they just sit there screaming about it indefinitly.

[Gafoon]

Originally posted by Gouru
Raise the restore on a Grilled Cheese sandwich to 25, this would make it equivalent to a stam potion. It would still require 100 skill to make with 50% success.

Make Apple Juice and Carrot Cake Burden 5. They currently restore 10 and this would make them equivalent to a health draught and be fairly easy to make with a 20 skill.



I REALLY like this idea (and the others you put forth), but the biggest problem that I see them is that this would be perceived as as a nerf to alchemy. So you've made a 4 credit skill be as good as a 6 credit skill.

On the other hand, you can use alchemy for a heck of a lot of things that you can't make with cooking (elemental infusions for fletching, etc). So this is probably a reasonable trade-off.

[Kreez]

Perhaps what is needed is mystical cooking?

We have mystical alchemy where life magic gems are manufactured using special alchemical processes.

Perhaps with mystical cooking able to produce foods that enhance our skill accumen or give us a boost to our physical traits this would help alleviate the pall that cooks seem to feel is hanging over them

By all means make them valueless through NPC Vendors...if they are manufactured correctly, they should work just fine as a nice little boost to cooking.

Combined with the alchemy gems, this could be a real boon to a magic-less character looking to fill holes in an equipment based buff setup.

Edit
Perhaps they could be a point increase that lasts a certain amount of time...like...say....the font of joji, or the newer Golem Boss elixir rewards?

***Side note***
I know that many feel that the alchemy life gems are worthless, but frankly that may be because the ready availability of level 7 spells is devaluing them to an extreme degree.

[XviiX]

how about this one......FIX the in game calc, OR eliminate it, its buggy, I have lost 2 items to it now....and just NOW found out by +envoy bow that it is a known bug that it says 100%, and it in fact isnt

[AC_Guy]

Ibn is it posible at this time to give an idea of how these rewards will work ?

Grommie teeth for exp are 1 per week

I am hoping that the timers will not be this long for the new ones.

I wish you could put a system in place like UO where NPC's will only buy X amount at any given time. So to sell your crafted goods you have to goto the differnt towns to sell.

[XviiX]

ARE YOU ON CRACK???
money macros ....lol
I can make more money on a lvl 30 pure melee ua character with everything spec (ua/missile/melee) no buffs but what I find in gems or clothing, in one hour than a money maker can do in one day.....
spend time fixing the in game items that already exist (the calculator that tells if you got 100% tinker or craft) lag, ban some whiner crying about a ucmer (oops did I say that...my bad)
ect
anyway, this is total waste of time

[XviiX]

Originally posted by Ibn
We agree with you. Cooking needs a lot of love... in fact when we were discussing this issue, some members of the team felt that we should wait and not make this change until we were able to make cooking improvements. Unfortunately, the scope of the improvements that we'd like to make means that we won't be able to get to them for some time, and we felt that this issue needed to be resolved before then.

SO......
STILL waiting on it.........................
lets see....well may 2002 was the second time I got back into game, still havent fixed it when I was in game before in aug 2001

[XviiX]

Originally posted by Ibn
Do players frequently buy THEs, deadly elemental arrowheads, and hearty kimchi from vendors? In our experience these things are generally handled in direct player-to-player interactions, or via tradebots, as vendors frequently clear their inventory. This change doesn't impact that interaction at all.

actually it has been posted OVER and OVER that most ppl dont even bother with those HH and HS and HM stuffs anymore, since you brought in rations and the new potions.
also, the biggest argument is not that you killed the macroing, but that we can make more money easy doing what you told us to do, loot, AND you spend more and more time killing something that doesnt even matter anymore so quit killing the actual game and start fixing whats in it ( skills and the d a r n e d calc )

[Maxymyllyn]

...will be no sell?

:eek:

[Apocalypso]

Kudos to Turbine!
Speaking for myself as a player since '99, I applaud you getting rid of the "clappers".

[Gouru]

Originally posted by Gafoon
I REALLY like this idea (and the others you put forth), but the biggest problem that I see them is that this would be perceived as as a nerf to alchemy. So you've made a 4 credit skill be as good as a 6 credit skill.

On the other hand, you can use alchemy for a heck of a lot of things that you can't make with cooking (elemental infusions for fletching, etc). So this is probably a reasonable trade-off.

In this case, I would not mind if the HH and HM versions of these foods did not change burden. I believe the long term goal for cooking is stam. Health and Mana are alchemy's bailiwick. Based on this, I concentrated on stam versions of food.

I carefully picked foods that did NOT require alchemy skills to make for these suggestions.

[yakisoba_noodle]

End of an era for sure. I did my time in the farmer's hut in Eastham, learning how to make Cragstonanoff. Was going to cook my way to greatness, I was. Heh.

I had a character that was part of the K-ban clapping cult. Heady days, spent in rapturous clapping in the mall in K-ban. Heh.

I watched guildmates make the run from the fletcher's hut to the archmage Celdiseth and back to make arrows. That was insane; buying and using a portal gem as part of a macro?

Overall, with respect to Gouru, it's a good change. I don't think it's going to have that much of an impact on the economy, but it might.

Turbine has correctly identified one of the greatest drains in the economy: Plats. They don't drop, and everyone casting 7s (lots of folks now) uses them. They cost alot. Slowly, the value of the pyreal is making a comeback. Folks are actually looting for money again.

One poster mentioned that he could make 60-70 plats per day with a macro. That's a great deal of money, and I'm glad to see the plat money-drain made larger by eliminating this mechanism.

HOWEVER! Work remains to be done. The foods in the game are in need of a serious analysis, much like the one weapons have gone through. Balancing the four point cooking skill and the interactions it has with the six point alchemy is interesting and complex. It could pay off big, too. I'd love to have my guys eat something other than standard rations and trade health potions.

Let's see this change followed soon by some attention to the chef's menu please. My mouth is watering for some new foods.
--Yak

[Korrigan]

It's good to get rid of the few money macros left but it sucks for the new players who were using this as an income source. Not sure the benefit outweights the loss ... :(

Turbine, you have to add more usefull recipes for alchemists and cooks. I mean, things players would be happy to buy. The alchys have the potions, but there is a huge need for cook love. Even the stam rations are not that good, the winter lager is much better (you get more stam for less burden).

[Jinnsman]

Originally posted by Hosagi
Just because you dont like it doesnt mean its a cheat
Just becasue you say so doesnt make it an exploit
you want a reason they should be left the way they are? go to a new server and w/o taking on a patron try leveling up an archer w/ the use of a trade skills mule then come back and say that there needs to be a nerf
A true tradeskills mule can not go out and hunt for cash cause it has no skill points to put in a weapon and it has no xp to put in the racial skills cause all the xp it makes needs to go into the trade skills w/ this nerf no one will be able to make a true tradeskills mule on the new server which means you wont get your precious tinkered armor
see the nerf doesnt just affect the tradeskills it affects EVERYONE if a player is discouraged to make a tradeskills mule on VT that means theres 1 less tinkerbot for someone to go to for their amror to be tinkered

Foolish argument!!! Back in the days before skill sell back and attribute redistribution you would have had a point, but times have changed! There is no reason to not roll an archer/ua/sword/whatever and quickly level that toon to 50 (trivial to do). Then begin selling back your skills and create a trade mule. I created my lvl 60 trade mule by doing just that, and he now has all tinker skills buffable to over 400 (translate to an easy 5 tinks on work 4 items), and cook/fletch/alch are at 400+ buffed.

In addition, if you are macroing tradeskill items for xp, HELLO?!! Perhaps a fine way to get to level 30, but after that it is a joke. There are better ways to level a trade mule (allegiance system ring any bells?).

[Gafoon]

Jinnsman's right.

We were having a discussion last night at dinner about how long it would take to get a level 126 character on verdentine.

Our guess was that it'd take about a month, and my guess was that it'd be a trade mule that was the first to 126.

Take a trade mule, train leadership, then swear 4 characters to that mule.

Now start powerleveling the 4 characters. They'll each pass up 50ish percent of their XP, so the trade mule will get twice the XP of each of the 4 characters.

By the time that the 4 characters are in their 90's, the trade mule should be well in the hundreds.

[chakaal]

It's disapointing to me that the only way of making any advancement (or money now) in the game is a result of hunting.

Are the 24 X 7 money macros a problem? Sure. Is this the right fix? I don't think so. I don't know what the right fix woudl be, but I still wish that a non-hunting characters had a role and a means of advancement on their own (i.e. not relying soley on passup xp).

Why shouldn't I be able to make some extra money by taking a crafting skill?

[Spike Lady]

I have a much simpler solution.

a) if trade window with NPC is active for longer than..say, 5 min, close window.
b) make it so the vendor is in a hostile environment. meaning that there is a agreesive spawn pt right next to the NPC. Money macros would LOSE money since they would have to buff. :-)

Now, one other thing that could be used would be to have a bell go off for the envoys if someone IN a town is in the same position for longer than 15 minutes. They could just boot the character to some other location or log them off completely.

Money macros would not make much if they only had 15 min to do so.

Don't bother wasting the dev time to curb the selling of craftables to NPCs.

I do why you are doing this though, but I think it's a waste of time. Those money macro hoe's would just find something else to exploit. You are like the doctors of the world. Every time you come up with a cure for the flu, it mutates and there is nothing you can do in the long run about it.

[Rune Flinger]

Just add this to the list of things Macros have ruiined in this game.


A few other points


1. salvaging is NOT crafting duh

2. Selling cafting items has nothing to do with the xp you gain duh

3. Crafting requires high coor just train/spec xbow and you can level at will <---- this really did not take a lot of thinking. My crafter is level 80+ and gained all his xp by himself in a months time.

4. This really only affects macros because:

a. who would really try to make money this way would have to be dense.

b. they are adding methods to gain xp and money by crafting with timers (read no macroing).

5. There is a real issue with crafting have NO REAL value but that IS a seperate issue that should be discussed in another thread dealing with that subject.

[KPD157]

On one side we have the concerns of Turbine that buying stuff from a store doing a Crafting skill on it and Selling it at another store would cause problems. On the Other side we have cooks and alchemists who want to be viable and be able to make money from their Craft.

The Solution is a compromise. Take the existing Item flags and add a new one, "Cannot be sold in a store" Add it to any Craft item at creation in the store but no where else especially not on monsters or just laying on the ground.

When crafting takes place the usage of any of these "Cannot be Sold in a Store" flagged stuff will result in the craft to get the same flag :)

Thus any "True" cook would pick the Apples themselves, A true Alchemist would go and farm and cultivate the herbs and components as well to make various potions. Now for Alchemists they didn't say they wouldn't add new things for them if it was possible.

I beleive Turbine is waiting to see if they can come out with a good solution to this problem before making these skills more viable. I Beleive in Turbine and I don't know about some of you who discuss things on the board. I used to believe in alot of you but I see your true colors now. Its going to take a lot to convince me otherwise. On the Lighter side though, I beleive this is a great idea just add the flag and it will solve the issue In my honest opinion :)

Thank you for a great Game Turbine :)

Edit I was just thinking about the flags. When you buy a crafting item from the store it should state as a flag "If Crafted becomes no sell store" That way you can still sell missbought items from the store back to the store but if used to craft then it becomes no sell to the store :)

Man I just got another brain elevation. Why would a store buy back Crafted items that they sold the components for and that they also might produce? Wouldn't that be a little counter productive for the stores profits? Why would an Alchemy component selling shop who has a herb garden in the back and makes their own supplies for public consumption want to buy from another alchemist who just buys the components from their shop ? Blah its just all silly when you think about it why are people complaining about selling things back to the shops ?)

[Darklord_Famine]

As is typical with Turbine you are once again cowering to the whining minority and removing more of the role playing from AC.

I would expect that before the end of the year AC will be reclassified as an MMOFPS

Guess I shouldn't be suprised at you throwing the baby out with the bathwater

DF

[Eph]

I like the fact that money macros are gone, but I would like to see a non combat means of making money, how about this...

I think that it would be nice if there were items you could buy in one location, and sell in another for cash value.

For example:

Nathan is an avid merchant/trader, who is not a big leveler, yet supplies his Monarchy(Or Vassals) with money for the Monarchies(Or Vassals) needs.

Nathan is level 45. Nathan is Lifestoned in Ayan, and Lifestone tied to Crater. He is also is portal tied to Old Sub and Tusker Temple.

Armed with only his wand, armor, shield, and the Foci for Item Enchantment and Life Magic. He makes his way to remote locations(locations that are a good run from any tie able portal) and obtains from special vendors additional packs that are unopenable and nondrop like the Foci. Once he has obtained 4 packs, Nathan turns them into a Vendor at say Cragstone for a nonopenable but droppable pack, which he can store in his Housing storage.

He then repeats this two more times but turns in the next set of obtained packs to the other two Race capitals of Zaikhal and Hebian-to.

Once each Capital pack has been acquired, Nathan then returns to his housing and picks up all 3 packs and heads to the old City of Trade, Qalaba'r and sells them for a Special Trade Note.

This Trade Note can be turned in for special items such as items to be used with Crafting or Tinkering, a MMD note, or something similar. It is not like this would be something that would be able to be macroed, and the payout would be equal to the time invested.

[Bob_Jones_LC]

I can't see how making money in such an inefficient manner is a serious balance issue. I also have a hard time seeing how a complete, blanket nerf to crafting is a good solution. It doesn't sound like this was much of an issue until you nerfed the traditional macro staples, and somebody crashed your server trying to work out an alternative.

All in all, craft macros are not nearly as imbalancing as trade bots, and since they aren't spamming constantly, I find them even less annoying. I have no idea how much you can make on one of these macros, but I've seen estimates of an M note a day. Say that's correct.

Craft macro = M Note / day
Hunting = M note / hour (minimum, I would think)
Trade Bot = Anywhere from 5-500 plats a day, depending on stock
Begging in MP for spare change = ??? Probably better than the craft macro

If you DO do this, please put an alternate reason for having a crafter in FIRST. Don't break it and promise us a fix "when you get around to it". Or just get rid of cooking as a skill, and delete the 500 odd cooking items from the game database. I mean, really, a lot of loot is not worth picking up (A LOT), but as it is now, getting a brown lump or a hunk of monougat is like insult on injury. With your suggested change, even if I have a cook with all the tools and ingredients necessary to make a fruitcake, say, what would be the point?

[D X Mage]

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Now I can take all that cash I'll be making with my macro (that doesn't use trade skills but still unfinished cause the tradeskill one still worked so no need to finish it) and buy lots and lots of keys of dang near all types.

[Darwich]

Question is why bother now, other then some server stability issues that you have had. When the the last big money macro fiasco happened, everyone turned a blind eye to it. It was acknowleged as a bug, but not adressed until the next patch. Now there are some minor issues, but we are still effected from last year's problem. Why worry about it now?

[Arshoon]

Well, personally, I love playing the cook/alchy/crafter, but leveling such a character is really hard as the game is really geared towards fighting and looting. I agree with others that say macros don't toss the economy out of whack. My UA on Solclaim made near a million pyreal in an hour killing monsters and looting the 20,000 pyreal items from them and selling them. Mind you I need that money to buy plats for the trade bots....

Anyway, to aid the economy and crafters I offer these two solutions:

1) Monster loot is the most unrealistic thing in AC. When I kill a Gold Phyntos Wasp I can find a chainmail hauberk on it. Where did he keep it? Make monstrs only drop things they could have or carry. Humanoids could have armor or weapons, and if the critter had a flaming spear he used on me, why can't I loot it from his corpse? Putting realistic loot on creatures will make discovered loot more valuable.

2) Better XP for craftables. The idea of the quest-like NPCs accepting certain craftable goods from PCs for pyreal and XP is a great idea. You have any idea how long it takes to level making applesauce? Personally, my crafter toons don't fight too well, and how many cooks have you seen in real life that join the military to kill things to get better at cooking? Not too logical! Also, I am reminded of the Ultima craft questing system. When you go to a vendor, there is a chance the vendor, when the window is closed, he/she will ask you to help fill a bulk order of goods and reward you when you complete it. How about that idea? Crafting quests, who'da thunk?

Stop nerfing so much stuff, add useful skills (how many crafters out there would like to play a tailor?). Anyhow, just my thoughts.

[DSpike]

Originally posted by _AbBaNdOn

#2. Create a new skill called apprentice. A player with that skill could choose Any character on the same account to become an apprentice to. It would be the reverse of loyalty. The higher the apprenticeship the more xp's get passed DOWN to the trademule. Leadership could also affect this and the total max could be 150% xp passed down. Any xp's produced by a character with apprentice would be passed up normally using loyalty and leadership to someone he is sworn to(which could not be a character from the same account like
now). This would allow you to hunt with your main and allow you to generate xp's for your trademule.



I think this is an excellent idea. No chaining of tradesmules just one apprentice and problem solved. Seriously, the game is not meant to be played from a tradesmule point of view only. The money macroing is a problem because even though you can make more money hunting, you don't hunt 24/7 so a money macro can make more than you do with even less effort...combine this with a few accounts macroing then you can see the problem.

Don't listen to the whiners Turbine, if you can make the tradesmule work then make it work. Verdantine will benefit by keeping the macros out.

[dryde]

sounds like a very good idea. are there any plans to making more more spells accessible by alchemy crafted gems? for a fighter this would be way more helpful since alchemy is based on focus and coord.since most fighters follow 100 str, 100 coord, 100 focus template. are there any plans of making bundled food? something like what you did w/ spell comps and fletching supplies. see you all ingame.

[SuzySwiftblade]

Even though I understand why you are doing this...it still stinks...many times I have found something in a vendor I wanted not quite having enough pyreal and not really wanted to cash a mmd note, so instead I would sell a bundle of deadly arrows and buy the item I wanted...now this option will no longer be able to me with this change :(

[toger]

All i can say is you are grasping for straws on this, the ammount of money you can make in a crafting macro is nothing compaired to what a melee char can make every hour.

There is 2 classes you are effecting with this MAGES and TRADE CHARS.

Most mages are full with salvage (like 80+ Bags), Comps, Foci, DI's, 7 wands now common a mage cannot look sucessfully and make enough to keep up with comp burn.

Yes Trade Chars make EXP through craft interactions, how much MINIMAL but you can level your trade char up that way. Now they will have to rely on that melee char for their cash supply.

No onto this, how about we NERF the ammount of loot one can sell at a time, common Melee chars can make soooooo much money per trip its crazy. On my melee char i can make over 8 MMD notes an hour way better than any craft macro i have ever seen. But with my mage I am lucky to get 1 D note every hour profit that is. On the trade mule forget it, a level 7 melee char can make a D note in 20 mins ALL PROFIT.

IMO this NERF is BS and i think everybody know it.

[Morgwyn]

This is really distressing. My trades toon really needs ways to earn xp without killing. Suppose you could whip up a few dozen quests for the purpose? If you could gauge them so that they give xp in approximately the same quantity that hunting for the same amount of time would give, it would be equitable, dont you think?

[Mildly amused]

Great changes. But as you admitted yourself cooking will need lots of love in the (hopefully near) future.

Originally posted by _AbBaNdOn
#2. Create a new skill called apprentice. A player with that skill could choose Any character on the same account to become an apprentice to. It would be the reverse of loyalty. The higher the apprenticeship the more xp's get passed DOWN to the trademule. Leadership could also affect this and the total max could be 150% xp passed down. Any xp's produced by a character with apprentice would be passed up normally using loyalty and leadership to someone he is sworn to(which could not be a character from the same account like now). This would allow you to hunt with your main and allow you to generate xp's for your trademule.


I love this idea. To prevent it from being abused, the apprentice character/trademule should not be allowed to have the racial weapons specced or any non-racial attack skill trained. Nor should he/she ever be allowed to learn attack skills later or via skill sellback.

[sandman]

Hamfast, I was thinking along your same lines but make it so that beyond a point the vendor ceases to buy at all until his shop resets. Make the reset time long enough and the profit is gone. For example, the shopkeeper could reply, "I have enough applesauce for now" and refuse to buy. Set the limit at say 2 full stacks of an item. Also remove end use items from the vendor profiles.

[Sabu]

Idea sounds ok leaning on the bad side... but its not game breaking ... Just wondering... how the heck did he manage to get a toon from teh same account on another server?(or was it multiple accounts?)

No onto this, how about we NERF the ammount of loot one can sell at a time, common Melee chars can make soooooo much money per trip its crazy. On my melee char i can make over 8 MMD notes an hour way better than any craft macro i have ever seen. But with my mage I am lucky to get 1 D note every hour profit that is. On the trade mule forget it, a level 7 melee char can make a D note in 20 mins ALL PROFIT.- Toger

^ Tell me where! lol Id love that kind of profit.

[Myschyf]

I'm really having a tough time with this. I admit, a lot of it is based on sheer nostalgia. I look back with great fondness on the early days of my trade toon's existence. She lived at an outpost and made bread and apple pies and sold them to the vendor there for barely enough to make more bread and apple pies. I never macroed her to make money. She is up to L108 now through vassal pass-up...I don't think she's ever even killed a rabbit - or any other creature.

She never even tried to take part in any of the xp-gaining tasks that were put into the game a while back - for the simple fact that she's so burdened with all the things she needs to do her "job" that she doesn't travel well. It's a major production to unload her to the point that she can do anything other than stand there tinking or dying or some such task.

I understand the concern about money-making macros but it's hard to see the game change so drastically in this area. I've never been a great "hunter", even with my main character. Cooking/alchemy/fletching was something I got into to be of help to my clan but in a way that I was able to have fun at without hunting.

There have been some excellent suggestions, in my opinion, that could potentially help with the money macro situation but still give cooks something to do. I do hope that you, Turbine, listen to both sides of your player bases' opinion on this matter.

I am still sticking with AC - this change isn't going to drive me away - I still believe that Turbine has the best interests of the game at heart. However, I sincerely hope that such radical and sweeping changes as this will be a rarity - not the "norm" - in the future. I'm concerned that a few more changes like this will continue to chip away at the AC that I have been playing for nearly 5 years now and ultimately turn it into a game that I don't want to be part of any longer.

[Rebel Yell]

A very poorly thought out solution, as you said yourself you just thought it up the last few days and rushed to put it into effect for your new server.

The rest of the servers deserves some thought also, not just an oh well we will balance them when we get around to it. Which usually translates into a few years worth of thinking about it.

Eliminating NPC profit from crafted items is a good idea but not replacing it with anything but a promise is a very short sighted solution. I've come to expect better.

[Pandora]

My thoughts are this:

First you dump the xp chains, so now its hard for even a new player to get into a allegiance, cause ppl don't want them cause they gain nothing from this person.

Now you want to stop ppl from making money by making potions or apple sauce or whatever, maybe if the loot items weren't always being messed with ppl could earn good money by looting and not having to do this, also some find it fun to make these items and sell back, manually, not everyone uses macros to do these things so they are being punished as well. How unfair!

You don't seem to be worried about all the ppl that run macros to hunt, they do it daily, nothing stops them, you have ppl that are level 126 cause of macros, so they had their chance now ruin it for everyone else to have a slight upperhand LOL.

Off topics a little, then you all go in and decide where ppl can sell their wares and so forth in the Market, and if not in the place you want them they are sent elsewhere, what differance does it make, be in the Marketplace or 20 ppl standing in a town doing the same thing?

So now we're being told we can't sell crafts we make back to make money and where to sell our wares to make money.

Doesn't seem that you all mind how you get our money tho LOL

I guess all things are good or become good in the end, just doesn't make sense to change things after they've gone for so long seems you'd be more interested in things you currently do and change them so they work right, like the last patch, can't even make arrows since patch day, thats great.

Well I'm tired of venting for now, guess we'll see what happens - before more ppl start leaving this game :(

A Upset Customer

[Ziggy al-Zog Jr]

I actually like this change............However, it is another example of you (Turbine) catering to the vocal minority.

Once again a small minority of vocal individuals who have nothing better to do than rack up there posts counts with endless postings about whatever today's evil is, has managed to convince you to change the game. All one has to do is visit the first page of the discussion forum to determine what there next issue is going to be. All they have to do is complain often enough for long enough and you'll change it. Now of course you (Turbine) wont be able to acknowledge that your bending to a bunch of board trolls, so you use the old "for the better of the game" excuse. And then the cycle continues.

All the while, the silent majority who dont see todays evil as being a problem or for that matter dont even know that these cesspools called boards exist, continue to silently cancel our subscriptions. And the slow, steady population decline continues. At this rate there just might be a couple of hundred people in game during prime time when your Expansion pack comes out. Well done Turbine.

[Aiko II]

AMG I read this whole thing. I only want to say that I fully agree with Gouru completely.

You know...an equally effective solution is to just remove all crafted foods except for rations from the game. They have absolutely no purpose, as anything they can provide can be gotten cheaper directly from an NPC. At one time a cook could support her stam needs while fighting by cooking up the foods she found on monsters, but that was removed. HH Pizza and Kimchi used to be worthwhile, but now the equivalent and better is bought over the counter from merchants. There is not a SINGLE food that has any purpose in the game.

Remove them, you remove all the food macros, less storage used on your server, less lag.

Don't go half-*** on your fix here, if they can't be sold back, they have ZERO purpose, so just go ahead and remove them. Okay?



Exactly! I came into this thread with this idea. For goodness sakes, look at all the useless food there is. I mean realistically, Someone pipe up and tell me when they either A: Crafted any of this food for a reason, B: Used the crafted food given to them. Heck Ive always used potions/lixirs Food was junk to me and most newer players don't even realize it exists and when told so they laugh!

I understand the original thought was to have a trade skill taken as part of a rounding out of your main character so to speak, but as posted elsewhere: (the majority of)people will not give up the perfect template to train cooking. Fletching is a must for archers but the alchemy? pffft. The game has evolved to where crafter/tinker chars should be viable characters.

I made a trademule and yes I call him a mule. I Specd Cooking Fletching Lockpick and staff, I trained Melee D and I took him hunting - I had to take him hunting because its the only way to advance in this game. I want to be able to tinker peoples things for them, but you hafta have it maxed for any chance at good equipment. This will not happen.

Eh it's late I'm rambling. to be concise - give pure crafters a way to level consistant with hunters. Make it non exploitable. I see no reason why a trades person should not advance and be as profitable as a warrior or a mage, they just walk different paths. If players *had* to get their regen items from crafters we could make money easily. If tradeskill gems were removed from the temples of enlightenment and forgetfulness players would be less likely to train a skill for xp (assuming xp was increased a LOT for completing an elixir) I mean if you got 25,000 xp for each elixir and could level that way and the hunting player base could not buy say Healing Kits, Stamina restoring items, mana and health restoring items except from players, it may work as a viable option.

But I dunno, you would hafta put in a check so that God forbid the crafters level while not at the keys as we all know how badly it affects someone else how high a level I get. :rolleyes:



Edit to say I think we should be the ones supplying healing kits. They should be craftable of ALL the things in this game.

[toger]

Sabu, how about this TRY HUNTING, i have found any Low level dungeon will work for a level 7 UNBUFFED to get a D note in 20 mins. Most loot is worth about 3000 to 5000 pyreals so making 50,000+ isn't that hard

[Rebel Yell]

IBN,

Here is an excercise for you and the devs,

Examine the level for crafting interactions for various things and then calculate how long doing the proposed quests it would take to make enough XP to craft the high end or even the mid level items.

I believe you will find that the time period of getting to that level through the proposed questing will most likely make this idea yet anouther game feature which just sits there not being used.

Your intentions sound honorable but the implementation is terrible.

[dryde]

i love the idea of an aprentice. but on the other hand a well built trades mule can be self buffing by lvl 50 and we all know that doesn't take long to achieve w/ the help of the wonderful buff bots. It is not impossible to have a trade guy that can fight at or above his lvl. I don't see a problem w/ them not allowing the sell back of crafted goods. Now what turbine needs to do is make bundles of food and also allow access to all lvl 7 spells,including item magic, through the use of alchemy and/or cooking. that would be nice. no need to waste preciouse skill points on training magic schools. i'm not a mage i'm a trade person, i make things and i'm so good that the effects are magical. it would be nice to say that:) really if turbine would allow trade characters acces to L 7 spells using thier trade skill then we could untrain all those schools of magic and train melee def and missile def. what would be wrong w/ that idea? my trade char name is i'll make it all on solclaim. look me up:)

[Virindi_TD]

Why don't you eliminate vendors completely? Or while you're at it, why don't you just transfer all our characters to AC2 and make us play there?

I think this game is going in a completely wrong direction. I've been sitting here dealing with it for a long time, telling myself I'd never quit, but the day may come. And it may be soon.

You may be very worried about the 'long term future' of the game and how game mechanics will work out over the next 10 years. I have a question: What are we supposed to do? I think pretty much everyone is getting tired of hunting for xp. Loot seems to be completely different every month and completely without apparent reason. The only thing left is questing; but there've only been one or two major new quests introduced every month for a long time.

It seems like the developers are spending so much time worrying about the future that they're forgetting the present. We need quests, not nerfs. Nerfs don't keep people in the game. Making AC a completely new game (as per recent and proposed changes) won't keep people in the game either; new players will still be few and old players will quit when they realize that there is nothing left for them of what originally made AC great. An overbalanced game is not fun. A game that caters to the perpetually annoyed vocal minority is not fun. A game with 2-6 hours of new content every month is not fun.

Where are the hidden and exciting quests of old, like Aerlinthe, now? Quests that don't tell you exactly what to do at every turn and thus take longer to figure out? And no, I'm not talking about quests that take an artificially long time because you have to run around for hours looking for some random rare spawn...I'm talking about quests with just that perfect balance of little hints and complexity that make a quest hard but fun to figure out.

Where are the new things to explore, places unknown? Game balancing that makes a large portion of the player base angry is NOT a substitute for good content. Recent content has seemed like nothing more than an afterthought.

When the servers come back up and I can transfer items off it, you will lose one of my accounts. You now have only two chances left before the other two are gone as well. Good luck.

[Herb]

Well, I personally dont like the crafting changes, they seem to radical and really hurt crafting toons. Craft toons are hard enough to get going as it is and to make it so they cant sell items really nerfs them. Your intentions are good but no alternatives seem to be in place to help these toons. To say you will fix and help the crafting toons in 6 or 8 weeks is way too long.

[Dereth Mozart]

You want player opinions why? So you can form your rules based on the popular opinion, and yet I recall once reading from Ibn that this is not a democracy. (that was a slap in the face to that player). So why ask for opinions? If you say it's not a democracy then why do you do what you do based on how many complaints you get?
Honestly the game is becoming more work than game. It's just a game for god's sake, we're supposed to enjoy playing it, but when you take away everything as you are, then you're pushing us to consider 'is this really worth my time'? I like to play the game and enjoy it, but I also have limited time. Most days I'm lucky to get more than an hour to play. That's one buffed run only, and sorry but if it takes me a whole buffed run to make just one mmd (at my current low level) which gets me only about 4 spells for my mage, or only about 4 plats, and lets say it's not a mage, but a fighter, we would still need to replace some supplies. Health, or stam trade elixers cost, field rations cost, armor that's worth anything must be tinked and it costs all around....
I have no problem with hunting to maintain my characters. That's never been an issue. But it is an issue when it takes 4 days at the one hour only with my lowest maintenance meleeD, and finally then I get to make enough money in game so I can finally go on a quest. It used to be where I could make enough for the week in one day, and enjoy a quest or just time with friends the rest of the week. We have a clan of 260 people, but only 18 of us are online anymore. It's no wonder most of them are missing in action, AC is becoming more work than game, and real life gives us enough work, tension and stress. I started AC to blow off stress, only it's becoming one them.
I'm wondering if the macros used for trading in marketplace will be on the nerf list next? No one is going to stand in marketplace doing nothing but trade, that would become old real fast, and then we'd loose a good portion of market. I'm all for getting rid of macros that are unfair to other players. If the money macros are causing problems, then get with it turbine and make it easier to make the things ourselves. You try making 250 deadly fire arrows, 250 deadly frost arrows, 250 deadly lightening arrows, 250 deadly acid arrows, 250 deadly armor piercing arrows, 250 deadly blunts, etc etc all by yoursef without a macro. You'd become catatonic in no time it takes so bloody long. If everyone has to make everything themselves, I wonder how long it'll be before you can no longer buy those things in market? Because all it will do is make those trading macro'd items like arrows, or elixers to stop making them, and or raise the price very high just because it's more difficult.

[Doda]

I dont like money macros and I never have run one, BUT I HATE nerfs of ANY kind!

You guys make major changes to the game and think it wont upset people, this is TOTAL B.S.

You people at turbine need to get REAL leadership and quit listening to the winers.

You people at turbine SHOULD be asking yourselves what will make more people play AC, in place of what can we nerf next.

[Seregil]

I agree with most of the proposed changes. However, something has to be done to make tradesmules a viable character to play and advance. The casino is nice for lower levels but the exp payout is not worth the money and time once the mule goes past 35. Even then it still requires a main character to provide the money to spend.

[KPD157]

I have heard said much about this so called entity but now I have seen it here at work. 1 out of every 5 posts aproximately has been ill informed inconsequential and silly Remarks about the changes being talked about in the Crafting Changes Letter to the Players.

One of the Biggest Question is why do such a thing? Why nerf us?

In the April event, we made changes to eliminate the usefulness of two of the most popular macroed craft items: applesauce and potions . However, new macros have sprung up in their wake. Recently the number of macroing characters – and complaints about these macros – has increased dramatically. In addition, we recently had an incident in which one player’s use of multiple macroing characters on multiple accounts actually destabilized one of our game servers .

It has become clear that further action is necessary, particularly as we prepare to open the new world Verdantine . In the past, we have identified and fixed macroed tradeskill interactions as they were discovered. Unfortunately, the cycle of macro – nerf – find new macro could go on for much longer. Any changes to vendor buy/sell rates could introduce a new problem. - Excerpt from Crafting Changes.


1) This is an ongoing process started a few months ago this is nothing new to us if you have been following it.

2) They want to open the new world with this Dynamic so they have to do something that fixes all future problems as well.

3) One of the Most compelling Reasons is that they have had server problems with some type of Trade Skill Money Macro Distabilizing the Server

And now Some Misconceptions:

Our Trade Mules and Trade Characters would not be Viable. I wonder if they ever were in light of these changes making a difference to you? When has Turbine ever said something like this for our Trade mules?

However, we do see that this can create an obstacle for new tradeskill characters, particularly those who may not have a patron to supply them at low levels. These are the type of characters we are likely to see on Verdantine. If these characters cannot sell the fruits of their labor, it will be difficult for them to purchase new raw goods for crafting.

To assist these characters, in the June event we will begin introducing new NPCs similar to the Glenden Wood pacifists. These NPCs will provide pyreal and experience rewards to characters for handing in specific crafted goods. These rewards will be on a timer so that they cannot be macroed .

The first of these NPCs will be targeted for new and low-level crafters, but we are committed to introducing new NPCs for higher-level characters in the coming months. In addition, we have increased the two lowest-level rewards on the Glenden Wood pacifists. - Excerpt from Crafting Changes


I like Crafting myself and I think that Turbines intent is to remove Macroing your Skill for Money. Yeah thats right its not Macroing a Crafting skill to make the Craft that they are removing its the money making from using Storebought items at the store or near the store its bought from and crafting something to sell right back for a profit. Its just as bad as a Combat Macro only for making Money in Turbines Eyes.

I offered an Alternate plan which no one has endorsed out here in Vocal Minority Land. Basically put a flag on any Store Bought item that when added to any Crafting Interaction will cause the item to have the Flag "No Sell at Store". I think this will solve the problem and stabilize the doubts about Turbines love of Crafting Characters, While removing Money Making Crafting Macroes .

You know some people might think I am a nut being a Plugin Designer and all and an Avid user of Decal a Third Party Plugin Program for AC, and still Advocating no UCM and now No Craft Money Macroes. But thats just me I see which Dirrection Turbine is taking and I do my best to guide it with my comments but I don't try to change them. I love the way they have shaped the game with or without our input. Its their Game and I am proud to call Asheron's Call my home in this sort of Game Genre because the Turbine Staff works so hard for us :)

PS I took a Poll on another board about what I would do if all 3rd Party Programs would vanish from AC. I said "Nothing would change I would still play the game I started with out them and I can continue without them." I am a Supporter of 3rd Party programs that do not break the COC or the intent of Turbine and I will remain so till the last days I am allowed to Grace Dereth :)

Thank you for getting Well informed :)

[Siege]

The only reason people money macro is to buy plats. Lower the value of them and no need for money macros.

Weren't Pyreal Scarabs more than 1.1k at one time, but they were lowered when plats came out. Simple fix without hurting the crafting chars and making more work on the "mini-quests."

Also just a side note, how are the mini-quests going to work on Darktide, they need crafters and tinker as much as the non-PK servers. It's not like I can stand in town with my tradesmule and do your mini-quest. Easy pickins.

[Gafoon]

First off, I absolutely love Korrigan's idea of flagging items as being crafted when you do a craft interaction. Instead of nerfing the ability of selling the items that COULD be crafted, they'd be nerfing the ability to sell the items that WERE crafted.


Having said that, I think that he's missing the reason so many people have been upset about this change.

Over the past four months, there has been an unending stream of nerfs that appear to have been directed squarely at crafting characters.

The first was the allegiance passup change. That removed the ability that many of us had of getting XP to our trade characters. The only alternative we were given was the Glendon Wood pacifists, but they only took a rare loot drop. Which meant that if we wanted to get our trade characters XP, we had to hunt for a rare loot drop on our mains - the trade character couldn't do it themselves.

The second was the addition this month of potions that are better than any that a player can craft (from a burden/reward standpoint). There's no longer a reason for alchemists or cooks to produce items, since you can buy stuff in the stores that's better. We were originally told that the improved items would be rare loot drops on monsters, but it turns out that you can just walk up to the healer in hebien-to and buy them.

The third major nerf is this one - they've removed even the ability of crafters to make cash - not huge amounts of cash, but ANY cash.

The only hint of crafting love was the announcement of the new NPC's that would produce rewards for low level crafters, with the promise of future love for higher level crafters.

The announcement, however never indicated that the NPCs would take crafted items in reward, people had no way of knowing that this wasn't just another "spend all the time on your main hunting for a rare drop" dynamic. Ibn has since clarified this, and that's a good start.

And there's a lot of people who have seen the viability of their crafting characters steadily reduced over the past six months who don't trust Turbine to actually follow through on the high level rewards for the crafting characters - the changes will get lost in the flurry of getting new content out for the new story arc.

It's happened before, and it may happen again. THAT'S the reason people are so upset.

[bobjava]

Another silly nerf about another silly problem.

Hand clappers an eye sore LOL. It's just nice to see someone around.

Perhaps spending some time making the game fun by ADDING SOMETHING INSTEAD OF TAKING SOMETHING AWAY, would be an idea.

In the last year the only constant has been the monthly NERFS (or patches as some call them), and the decline of server populations.

Perhaps I am missing something, not being a high level programmer, but only a customer servicer manager for 20 or so years, but something is not working here.

In the real world, if you do something over and over and it drives your customers away, YOU STOP DOING IT!

And don't say Dereth isn't the real world, it takes real world money to keep in going.

Let's see, every month something is nerfed, every month less people play. Does anyone see a trend?

A few MMD's, a few xps from G-man are not ruining the game. What a laugh!

Lack of content and no marketing and constant nerfing are doing the damage. The macro's are a symptom, not the disease.

Treat the true problem and the symptoms will go away.

[Amuk]

Originally posted by Siege
The only reason people money macro is to buy plats. Lower the value of them and no need for money macros.

I have to agree with this. This is similar to the housing problem. Houses and villas had such a demand people like Niro were able to make a lot of real money selling them. The best solution would have been adding more housing. Now they are available and demand gets satisfied...no more frustration being beat to buy a house. We were "told" it wasn't possible and they have done other things to fix that problem.

This is different tho. There is NO reason why the cost of plats cannot be reduced. It would solve the need to get so many pyreals just to cover a spell component. It is nice that scrolls drop fairly decently now...that helps a lot with the cost of filling a spell book.

[Gald]

I believe the changes are correct. I read a lot of complaining about how they would nerf the game for some players and how it makes cooking/alchemy unusable.

The main problem with cooking and trade skills is that they already are unusable due to many people abusing them by trade-macroing, which they do unattended, and Turbine trying to compensate.

Once its almost impossible to trade-macro stuff, then Turbine can make them useful again by making new recipes and modifying existing ones, not for their pyreal value, but for their usefulness value when playing the game. If you could put some victual oil into one of those restore 100 pts elixirs, then you probably could get one that restores 150 or so points, which will practically get you out of any sticky situation you may get into. Who won't want to pledge allegiance to any such character that can provide that kind of help?

About trade, you can always go to the marketplace and get your bot going to sell whatever you can craft. I believe we'll be seeing more trade potions, gems and cooked items for sale in the marketplace and other towns once they make final products useful again.

Another way they can compensate is by making the value lower than the cost, so you cant actually sell to a vendor what you craft, only to human players that can appreciate the item for its usefulness.

What we must take into account is that this is not a Business Tycoon game, its an RPG. We dont need hunting and questing to get money, we need money to get items for hunting and questing, even if it is for other people in the case of pure trade characters.

Another way to make it hard to macro would be to add the proposed supply/demand system to the game's economy, which would also have to come with limited supply of goods, so you know that Zaikhal's milk grocer can only sell 2000 bottles per day (could be game day), and if you're purchasing the last bottle then you're going to pay a lot of times the original price for it. And if you sell 5,000 pies to him, you'll get cents for the last pie unless there's demand enough to offset the supply. Plus, someone has to be willing to buy that item for you to sell another unit. Then you might get PC vendors beside the NPC vendor selling the same stuff at lower prices. People that will stock on goods while the price is right, or go purchase at other towns to get better prices and then sell when the price is high.

Also, you could put into the game some basic machinery and you could acquire farms for milk or apples or whatever you may think of, mines for diamonds and so, where you would have to buy the cows and maybe hook them to the ground, knowing you might get 20 bottles from it per day and maybe if you feed it with a special formula you can get more milk or magically improved products.

What we must ask ourselves is: Do we want that? Do we want the economy to get so well developed that you cant hunt Tremendous monogua anymore, because the land they spawn on is private property and is now farmland, so they cant spawn anymore and even if they did, you can't pass because its private property? Would you like to pay more for the milk you need to make a pie than you would for a villa because the farmers in Dereth are stocking on it to make the price go sky-high?

Good luck and good hunting.

Gald Elezar from Wintersebb

[KPD157]

Its KPD157 Gafoon I checked Korrigan never talked about Crafting like I did :)

Forget the silly Announcement they are removing the ability to sell Craftable Items and insert my plan to make only things not store bought crafted be sellable.

A trade skill person like a Cook or alchemist just needs to be able to find the stuff for their crafting outside of the Store. It fosters exploration around the safe areas and dangerous areas of Dereth. How many times have you seen in some Fantasy story of an Alchemist or Wizard "OK now lad go run to the cave of Blah lbah blah and bring me some of the Blah blah blah Root for my potion " How many times have a Crafter type of character had to go do something dangerous to get something well worth the reward? This is a Fantasy Role Playing Game not a Factory game like the Sims or SimCity or something.

Trade Mules and Trade Characters who want to pick up apples and make Applesauce prolly won't make it very far XP wise or Money wise but I think they shouldn't anyway. The True Merchant sets up shop gets the raw materials from the land and makes the stuff without going to the store. Thats the old way and thats the way I rather see.

Now back to the issue. Automated Trade Skill selling back to the store and buying stuff from the store to keep the process going is out. Get that through your heads. Turbine don't want it and neither do I. I beleive we can keep alot of the Macroes for making things to sell to the player base and what not but making money in an automated way is not good for the game and Turbine knows it ..

The problem is most of our Vocal Minority out there doesn't beleive it or chooses not too. I ask no I dare say I demand that you look at this from a Trade persons view in a Medieval Setting. Is Automated Factories like the 1800's and 1900's suppose to replace the Guilds and Trade houses of the 1400's and earlier ?)
Or are we going to stand behind Turbine and support their plan with further conciderations and actions that might help support Trade characters and remove the practice of Automatic Money making by using their Skills?

Think about it and maybe you will see the "Truth" :)

[GuyDWong]

Good change Turbine.
It is always good to see elements of the game that have been abused be fixed. Trade characters should be making trade goods for "TRADE" not for sale.
I never understood why a storekeeper would ever buy back products they sold you for so much more than they were paid for it...would definitely be a way to go out of business. At the most, they should have paid minimum wage for the time to make the trade goods, which in Dereth times would have been about 2 pyreals a week...which would be another way to have solved the problem, but have taken more processing time.

[Phosphine]

about the money macros and obtaining wealth . . . .
thier profitability is tied directly to the the ability to obtain wealth from th game's MOBs. For the first three months of this year, the loot was so terrible that people either stopped playing thier mages or playing all together. It was hard for even a melee to break even on spell comps. LOTS of players macroed plats out of necessity, and I was so much as told by TE that the more wealthy clan members were EXPECTED to support lower level clan members, whether or not they were your vassal, a sort of IG socialism.

Since the last patch, the need to macro plats has evaporated. That does not mean that some will macro plats, just the NEED to do so isn't there now that level 7 scrolls and cash are plentiful. Even high level mages can turn a regular profit and increase thier plat reserve if the take the time to loot everything and render down the materials. The return on a plat macro is a small fraction of equivalent time looting.

So to say that TE is 'globally nerfing' money macros because of the wealth they generate is inconsistant reality. A more fair explaination should be explicitly state, such as this action is in response to the minority of complainers on the board or the personal opinions of the AC1 Live staff, or a labor safing approach vis a vis correcting bugs in the economy.

[Junkyard Dog]

I see a lot of "improvements" to the game that seem designed more to decrease the load on your servers rather than benefit the players. While I admit that some ARE improvements, some, like this one, are a huge step backward. If such a fun aspect of the game as crafting as an input to the economy is restricted this much, there needs to be a corresponding benefit.

The main thing I see happening with this is to INCREASE trade bots, especially in Verdantine. While this may not necessarily be bad in itself, it will locally overload Marketplace as much or more than it did Qualabar before MP was added to the game.

One possible fix would be "vending machines" that you can rent for a fee for a fixed period of time in town bazaars. They only accept and sell crafted goods in whole stacks. To decrease server overhead, items will have a price fixed at a fair and standardized value in whole trade note increments. If you want another price or quantity, sell/buy it manually.
To avoid the drudgery of checking vending machines to find what you want, allow a search function. Since the items that can be put in them are limited, this would not present a large software overhead.

This would be a way to decrease server load since Marketplace crowding should decrease somewhat, and a fixed price will decrease programming overhead of tracking how much each seller wants to charge for each item in the vending machine. It will also add the same intent of the original Explorer Quests and push people to get out and visit other places.

Another benefit is to combine the ideas of NPC-like vendor selling and player driven economy. Players become virtual NPC's via their vending machines, and drive the economy directly via Marketplace.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Maxymyllyn
...will be no sell?

:eek:

Dyed armor will remain sellable. This only refers to objects that are created through crafting, not objects that can be improved through craft skills.

The distinction is difficult to see sometimes, but all unsellable items will have this clearly stated when they are examined.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Darwich
Question is why bother now, other then some server stability issues that you have had. When the the last big money macro fiasco happened, everyone turned a blind eye to it. It was acknowleged as a bug, but not adressed until the next patch. Now there are some minor issues, but we are still effected from last year's problem. Why worry about it now?

The team and our policies are considerably different now compared to when the last big money macro fiasco happened.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by toger
Most mages are full with salvage (like 80+ Bags), Comps, Foci, DI's, 7 wands now common a mage cannot look sucessfully and make enough to keep up with comp burn.

I don't understand how this change impacts the character you're describing. Salvage will still be sellable, as will the vast majority of looted items.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Rebel Yell
Eliminating NPC profit from crafted items is a good idea but not replacing it with anything but a promise is a very short sighted solution. I've come to expect better.

We are replacing it with more than a promise. The first of these new quest NPCs will go into the game at the same time as the change to crafted items.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Gafoon
Over the past four months, there has been an unending stream of nerfs that appear to have been directed squarely at crafting characters.

I strongly disagree with this statement.

The allegiance passup change was not, was never targeted at crafting characters. The ability to generate enormous amounts of XP out of thin air impacted all players, regardless of skills or class.

Regarding potions that have better burden/reward than those that players can craft -- I've seen this quoted in a few places but it's simply not the case. Example:

Trade Health Elixirs give 70 health, with 70 burden. This is a boost/burden ratio of 1, where a higher number is better and a lower number is worse.

We introduced three new health potions this month. The Health Tincture has a ratio of 1, but only gives 50 health back so you would need to carry more for the same reward. The Health Tonic has a ratio of .85 and the Health Philtre has a ratio of .67. More importantly, the Tonic and Philtre cannot be found on vendors. So if you want a reliable source of health potions that give you the best bang for your buck, you have to go to a PC crafter.

We are most certainly not intentionally nerfing crafters, and we are continuing to work on additional rewards for crafting characters, as well as alternate solutions for the issue that sparked this change.

[Gouru]

Originally posted by Ibn
I strongly disagree with this statement.

The allegiance passup change was not, was never targeted at crafting characters. The ability to generate enormous amounts of XP out of thin air impacted all players, regardless of skills or class.

Regarding potions that have better burden/reward than those that players can craft -- I've seen this quoted in a few places but it's simply not the case. Example:

Trade Health Elixirs give 70 health, with 70 burden. This is a boost/burden ratio of 1, where a higher number is better and a lower number is worse.

We introduced three new health potions this month. The Health Tincture has a ratio of 1, but only gives 50 health back so you would need to carry more for the same reward. The Health Tonic has a ratio of .85 and the Health Philtre has a ratio of .67. More importantly, the Tonic and Philtre cannot be found on vendors. So if you want a reliable source of health potions that give you the best bang for your buck, you have to go to a PC crafter.

We are most certainly not intentionally nerfing crafters, and we are continuing to work on additional rewards for crafting characters, as well as alternate solutions for the issue that sparked this change.

Ibn, my comments were about COOKS, not Alchemists. What foods are there that a cook can make that compare to the new tinctures and potions? Please don't divert my issues about how cooks are being nerfed by pointing at what an alchemist can do. It doesn't fly.

I sent you an email detailing exactly how foods were inferior, simple changes that could be made to a few of them to make a cook viable. You were nice enough to reply.

Now you post here that new potions nerfing cooks is 'simply not the case' and post examples using alchemists. What am I to think?

[Gafoon]

Ibn,
I understand that you don't agree with the statement. I was trying to express much of the frustration that has been brought out on this thread (although much of it was misdirected).

I, like many others, are STILL quite furious at the XP chain nerf that inadvertently nuked our trade characters. We had set a mini-chain to level our trade character. And then we promptly out-leveled the trade character, since we were getting the vast majority of the XP.

When the chain nerf went in, while it wasn't targetted at crafting characters, it disproportionately affected them. Since crafting characters typically don't have the skills to actually be self sufficient, they needed to get their XP from some external source. Before the chain nerf, the way this was done was by XP passup.

But after the chain nerf, since the trade characters had been outleveled by their vassals, the chain nerf removed the only viable way of getting XP to trade characters. Since the vassals have outleveled their patron (the crafting toon), there was no way of reshuffling the characters to feed their XP to the trade toon.

You put items in stores that were at or above the quality of the foods that could be cooked (see Gouru's post above for more details on that one).

When you described the new potions in the LTTP, you indicated that they would only be drops off creatures, and not found in shops. As long as the healing items were rare drops, this wasn't a big deal, but with them being purchasable in shops, this became a major issue.

[Ibn]

Please understand that there is a difference between "items better than those that can be created by crafters" and "items better than those that can be created by cooks".

The first statement, made by Gafoon, is what I was responding to.

Cooking needs love, we are not disputing that.

[Gouru]

The new health tincture has EXACTLY the same stats as Hearty Healing Famous Pizza. And is available at any store. And I haven't checked, but probably cheaper than what a cook can make it.

Feel free to draw any conclusions you wish about my feelings there. I really don't want to get banned.

I'll quit reading this thread now. It's the most discouraged I've been since starting the game.

[Maxymyllyn]

First and foremost Ibn, thanks for answering my question on dyed armor.

I think the majority of complaining I see here is a (valid) series of complaints. The main of it being that Cooks and Crafters in general feel like they've been overlooked and ignored.

My char is an Alchemy/Tinker Tank Sword. I pay close attention to whatever tinkering and crafting changes occur. I am level 110 and have been hording up my skill credits for my 126 point when I finalize all my skills. I am currently stuck between Missle Defense and Cooking. I'd love to do Cooking, but it just doesn't seem worthwhile. I've recently been thinking about getting rid of Alchemy because, quite frankly, healing potions are too damn heavy to lug around - healing kits suits me fairly well, even if in VoD, Ayan, or Caul they're not 100%, I still usually can haul butt away long enough to heal.

Alchemy Gems? They really don't seem worth all that time...especially with new items and whatnot that cast level VII spells on you.

I was always under the impression that the changes to the Alchemy Gems, Cooking Love and explanded Tinkering was going to get more love !)sooner not later. While the passup situation wasn't directed at crafters, it definitely hurt that style of play. Unfortunately, many of the 'nerfs' that have occured seem to be affecting the crafting community. It was always heartening 4+ years ago to think that I'd have Alchemy and Cooking as my fallback when I got to the uber point - I dreamed of someday being able to make uber stuff for myself. Now, the only thing that holds somewhat promise on that is tinkering. Alchemy and Cooking feel like the bastard child that Turbine has forgotten at times.

I know y'all know that people feel this way. Unfortunately, a well placed and good intended change to crafting like this feels like yet another finger to that community. I'm just sayin'.

Cooking needs more love.
Alchemy needs more love.
Fletching needs more love.

What I mean by love isn't boosting the existing skills - I mean NEW things. New recipes. New items to craft. New components. New STUFF. Streamline or improve what you have and move on. DON'T wait until the expansion.

(PS - the Isparaliun changes hurts the crafting community too

[KPD157]

Hey Maxymyllyn, Don't you think the concern they have to make a fix to something concerning Trade skills might mean they are actually going to be diving into it in the next few months ?)

I truely think that Turbine is getting ready to wow us on Crafting thats why they taking out the bad influences on it now :)

Ibn said they weren't planning on this and all but I am sure that the Team is discussing more about the Topic of Viabilitiy of Trade skills or such a Nerf wouldn't have come up so quickly :)

Trade skills are going to mean alot to the newcommer to Dereth on the new world. And I agree with Turbine that this change is going to set a starting point for new changes that will just blow the doors on what we can imagine.

The Problem is not they arn't looking into Trade skills and the effects, its that they are that I think most of the Trade community is getting up in arms about it. I mean if you left things as they are would we be any better off ?) The Trade skillers would be seen as mindless Clappers in towns all in a bunch instead of what I would call the underdogs of AC. My First character had Cooking and I loved it and I still love Trades although I have done alot of other things too :) 4 points for Cooking 6 for Alchemy and your set to do most of the cool things out there. So don't say they are overlooking Trade skills. They are looking straight at the skills and overly devouting time to it to make the changes for the next update ;)

[Maxymyllyn]

....you are correct, but I'm stuck playing this game probably for as long as it is around, so we'll definitely see!

[Iceness]

good idea

hehe, I thought the bit about the guy destabilzing the servers was a tad bit funny though

[KPD157]

How long did it take them to get Treasure Balanced out once they started and how did it all start ?)

Answer :) It took them 4 Months and we are in the tail end of it and they started by nerfing all loot levels and making the loot horrid :)

[Bunyun]

Since this was not answered in IBNs last round, here it is again.

Will food prizes from the casinos be sellable?
Or is this another casino nerf?

[Bob Crumb]

I wonder about something.

I just spent the better part of an hour reading this thread. My feeling is that the number of people commenting are at least 4:1 against this change. I, too, am against this change for the reasons above and I will only reiterate or amplify this:

For my 2 pyreals, which is worse:

-- A few clappers sitting around the vendor
-- A larger number (cause its more useful) number of UCM lootbots

This change seems to lead to two outcomes:

-- real trade Role-playing characters getting their reason for existence nerfed
-- supporting a switch to UCM loot-bots for cash purposes

But I will comment at more length on whether Turbine is "listening".

I strongly supported Turbine as "really listening to us" when the portal location change was floated then removed. There were an approximately equal ratio of people commenting against the "remove ugly surface portal" change being proposed. Turbine listened, to thier credit, and did not implement this change.

This is the "remove ugly clapper" change. Coments stopped the portal change. Will Turbine listen here too?

There is a vocal, probably majority, who feel crafting is OK as is and if 1 hour of dev time is spent on this change it is 1 hour taken away from improving the game.

I am watching with interest to see if the new "Turbine cares what you think" will indeed care what we think here as well.

Bob Crumb

[kgober]

I think the "Turbine cares what you think" rule only applies when they haven't actually done any of the implementation work yet.

I suspect that this change has already been implemented, if they're expecting to have it ready for the June prop. if that's the case, it's not posted here due to the "Turbine cares what you think" rule, it's posted here due to the "Turbine limits its surprises to the lore and storyline -- players are warned of changes to game dynamics in advance" rule.

If this change were really so far off that we actually had time to *affect* the outcome, it wouldn't have been posted this way -- it would have been a part of the Letter to the Players instead, under the 'In Development' section.

-ken

[GKusnick]

Originally posted by Bob Crumb
-- real trade Role-playing characters getting their reason for existence nerfedThis is the crux of my objection. My crafting toon has in effect had his livelihood taken away and is being offered a welfare program in its place. I can no longer make a living practicing my craft in the normal way, by making useful products for sale to town merchants. Instead I must now apply to some NPC civil servant for make-work projects of no real utility to the game economy. From a role-playing perspective, crafters are being taken out of the work force and put on the dole. That's what this comes down to. Even if the XP and cash rewards are actually better this way, it's still an insult to honest, hardworking roleplayers.

As for whether Turbine cares, we can only hope that Ibn created this thread in the Feedback section for a reason.

[KPD157]

They had two huge reasons to change this and fix it later. Its called the "Change this and Fix it later Rule". I personally would love if our input after they decide on something could actually get something changed in the game before the next update but I do understand that its not possible all the time :)

I was really happy when they came out with the Crafting Chance Display Toggle thing it really helps me when I have my Archer and I don't wanna see those percent messages and yes and no questions but still wanna know if I can do that Tinker or Hard Craft :)

I have to raise my doubts here though guys. I don't think they have the time to implement any fix especially the one I put forward that goes inline with their goals for Crafting. They have alot to do in this update getting ready for VT. Keep the suggestions coming though the earlier they get the idea the more likely to get it applied :)

Don't ever think that we don't have a voice. We have one and even if its the Vocal Minority in the Game its the Vocal Majority on these boards because we are very loud ;)!

Peace :) oh yeah And Thank you Turbine for a Great game ;)

[D X Mage]

Down to two accounts now from nine before the vocal minority gained a foot hold. Have you seen the number of people on the server of late? It seems to be declining.

The proposed crafting change isn't something that I would call a good thing. In fact I think it is a very short sided thing. Too bad. Now there will be a new revolution in macroing that will unleash a new plague of macroing. Give it time and they will begin to surface.

[An Adventurer]

This seems like the best quick fix to the problem before VT goes up. But I dont like the NPC turn ins for xp and cash.

The best long term solution would be to make crafted items sellable, but you would not make or lose any money. It would mean changing the values of a lot of items, and making all the buy sell rates of every bowyer, grocer, etc in dereth the same. And also, make it so the crafted items could only be sold where you buy supplies for them. You would probably have to add a new alchemist shop into towns too.

example: you buy water (1p) and flour (9p), you can sell bread for 10p. Or buy an apple (5p), add dough to it, and sell the apple pie for 15p. Or you could grind that apple, and sell the apple sauce for 5p.

The only exception for this would be for crafted items that required a treasure item to make, such as brown beans, peppermint sticks, monoguat, nanners, pyreal motes (alchemy gems), chorizite, and those crystal arrow heads. You should able to make some money off of those because the supplies aren’t easy to get.

They also need to make it worth more xp to do craftings, but have it like the old spell ecomony. If you do one craft too many times it isnt worth as much xp and after a few times, it should be worth no xp. Exp values would be a lot more for the crafts that involve those materials you can't buy.

[Myschyf]

A couple of people mentioned in their comments that people macro for plats because plats are so expensive. That made me curious enough to want to ask - why ARE plats so expensive? Looking at pyreals and plats in my pack, a pyreal scarab is worth 1K pyreals...a plat is worth 40K pyreals...why such a huge difference? A Level 7 spell certainly isn't 40 times more effective than a Level 6 spell...so the difference doesn't make much sense to me from that standpoint.

What's the rationale behind making plats so much more expensive? Mages have a huge cost to bear - constantly. I may get flamed for this but it has struck me as unfair for a long time. Melees buy/trade or somehow obtain their weapons...and that's it. They get their rends and they're set. They don't have to constantly replenish their "supply" of weapons to hunt. Admittedly, I'm not real big on melee hunting myself, so I could be missing out in aspects of melee expense - but that's how it looks to me as a mage.

Simple curiosity - and I apologize for straying from the REAL topic...but since the topic was raised and not answered, I thought I'd ask outright. :)

[Tomoe Ohara]

If you are going to fix cooking, you also need to fix the carpal tunnel syndrone foodmaking process. My low level cook used to make bunny pies because they look so amusing. But the amount of clicks needed combined with the bad return makes them rather useless.

Or even more radical, why don't you just combine alchemy and cooking into one skill so a cook can do all the steps to make a food without an alchemist??

[Astus]

While I personally despise money macros; you continue to demonstrate that although Turbine has many talented members creating beautiful and rich worlds, you have no members dedicated to consistency and balance within these worlds. Your "response" to this issue has convinced me I will not be returning to AC when you release the expansion. You waffle on everything or take half-hearted stances, and up until now I always thought it was Microsoft's fault. But now I see that with Microsoft out of the picture you continue the same trend.

As it stands there are 3 crafting macros that grant income (either via vendors or player interaction.) Below I have categorized them.

Skill: ----------------------------- Item: ---------------------------------- Sell to:
Cooking -------------------------- Applesauce -------------------------- Vendors
Alchemy ------------------------- Trade Elixirs ------------------------- Players
Fishing --------------------------- Salvage ------------------------------- Players


Now you nerf Cooking so that people cannot just macro and sell to vendors. Where does nerfing Fishing come into play? You should not need me to tell you that only a fool sells the fishing salvage to vendors, the return over time selling salvage is like an X note an hour. I actually tested this recently to be sure. Even if you sell the raw materials without salvaging you come short of a C note/hour.

The only way to make any money fishing is to sell to players, but I have maintained that Gone Fishin' will not salvage as it fishes so this has never been a major problem. The fishing macro's fill up and I log them out when their pack is full. It provides enough salvage for personal use, or a small amount of salvage to sell to players.

This is not an economy breaker. No more so than an Alchemist macroing Trade Mana/Health Elixirs and selling them to players. This is just a continuation of your asinine-reactionary nature. As with UCMs your response is no response, just a sloppy band aid. No longer will I allow you to toy with my emotions and string me on, hoping for a revitalization of AC. Nerfing a handful of fisherman clearly demonstrates that you have no unified vision for this game.

Turbine is simply too immature, as a company, to have the responsibility of maintaining a persistent game world. Now I can at least resign myself to watching it die like AC2 instead of disappointedly hoping for its recovery.

Astus
Author of Slave Trade 2 and Gone Fishin' (http://d-c.fidev.net)

[Arcane Katty]

You know, what needs to happen is a BAN to Decal/AC Tool and a complete character wipe for all servers.. Then it would be step in the right direction ;)

I'm sorry I have to laugh at this *fix*.. Do away with money macroes, but what about the other macroes (more specifically combat)?! heh.. What about the fact that the community is almost nothing due to TradeBots.. a huge percentage of your player base is now some kind of bot anyway.. bleh

[Dismemberment]

I don't macro money(or XP for that matter), but if too much more is nerfed I am unsubscribing all 4 of my accounts. I like the game the way it was, the chain nerf almost made me quit. You play a game for 3 years and it you keep getting things you like taken away, maybe it's time for a new game.


Note: After 3+ years of playing I only have 2 126+ characters. They are one different accounts too. So don't think I was in some big chain, but the passup was very nice.

[rascal]

the proposed fishing nerf is pathetic

fishing has already been nerfed enough.

[toger]

IBN, you seem to have missed what i was saying, MAGES HAVE NO PACK SPACE TO LOOT, MELEE HAVE TONS OF PACK SPACE AVAILABLE.


THIS IS A TRADE CHAR AND MAGE NERF, mages have no room to loot, and looting and salvaging to sell the bags is **** answer.

My mage has no room to loot i mean maybe 8 to 10 items before i am full. where my melee has all the room in the world, 1 Pack of DI's and some elixers that is ALL so looting and salving is much more beneficial

Looks like this is Melee love again, not mage or trade chars.

Mages are right now so underpowered its not funny, a archer can out kill mages, melee's baa no problem with the new render weapons, sword is the best class out there, but it only cost 16 credits where WAR COSTS 28 how about fixing that insted of nerfing mages and trade chars.

OH Yea and Melee's cost noting to have one, just a few stones every once in a while, well i can use stones (I LOOT) on items i LOOT, no cost involved, i can loot elixirs for stam.

Where mages cost comps, lets say 50K for a plat i cannot keep up with the cost with looting only 8 to 10 items i can sell. Trade chars are the worst right now along with a mage.

I can say this nerf is BS

[Cuttler]

I beg to differ with you on the power of the classes Toger. My level 102 mage can make more xp per hour solo then my level 149 sword character can make solo. In fact, I have no place that I can make decient xp on my sword character unless she's in a fellowship at the VoD or caul. And she certainally cannot go to those places solo.

As far as I'm concerned, stopping to vuln or imp my own creatures as a melee only lesses the xp I make because it wastes time switching from a casting device to a weapon and shield. Add the high number of evades before landing the spell and its totally worthless as a means to keep up with the amount of xp needed to raise a skill at that level. Rend weapons help when not but not as much as a rended casting device helps a mage. Mages SOLO are the most powerful class in this game.

[Glace]

My only concern is, purchasing something and not being able to sell it back. I have purchased the wrong item before on several occassions. I would like the option of purchased items being able to be sold back.

[Bob Crumb]

IBN - you cannot deny there is outcry against this change.

IBN - Turbine has publically said it wants to listen to it's player base.

IBN - To Turbine's lasting discredit, the loot and XP changes were foisted on the community with little time for comment and caused the largest defection of players I've seen in my time in this game.

IBN - Turbines reaction was to work toward pre-announcement in the "In development" and "In concept" discussions...and this openness molified many folks, including myself. Many thought "ok, transitional mistake but out of it comes something good."

IBN - To Turbine's lasting credit, since the management change it feels that where the bulk of the players have concern with a pre-announced proposed change the plan of action is modified to mitigate those concerns.

IBN - you are Turbine's voice and you've been pretty darn silent here.

Bob Crumb

[-D-W-]

Despite the sentiments of the people posting here, the live team seems hellbent on proceeding with this change. This change in itself does not affect me to any extent. But it does signify a certain mindset on the part of turbine. And this mindset was exactly why I quit AC2.

I don't think the sky is falling.

I don't think this change will make me quit.

I do think that this change is part of a pattern of "fixing" things that aren't broken, and making the fix worse than the "disease".

This is a stable and good game that has a core of players that has supported it for the last 4 years.

This playerbase has remained with AC, despite a plethora of games with better graphics. This is a different playerbase than the EQ mobs. We don't like forced grouping. We like solo play. We like being powerful. We like AC because despite the changes every month, there was a certain predictability to it. You have turned it all on its head. Now I have the same queasiness in the pit of my stomach that made me quit AC2. I honestly have no idea what nerfs will come next.

Let me spell it out for you. For me and the majority of the AC1 players that moved to AC2, one of the major reasons AC2 sucked was the instability. I don't mean the servers. Every patch changed everything. A viable character prepatch could be a completer gimp post patch. This destroyed our willingness to play the game.

AC is an incredibly addictive game for some of us. It is an old game. Its graphics are outdated but despite that we keep playing. You need to keep your playerbase loyal because your chances of ditching us and getting a new player base for this old game is exactly zero. You will not be getting EQ or DAOC types converting to this game. EQ2, WoW and other games are all coming out and will all appeal to those players a lot more than AC ever will.

AC has its own unique appeal and a small (compared to EQ) but very loyal playerbase. People leave because they get bored, not because of crafting. Not because of money macros.

You should have sign on your walls over at your offices.

"NEVER NERF UNLESS NOT DOING SO WILL KILL THE GAME"

And it is pretty damn obvious that this is not the case here.

I promise you. If you turn this into another AC2 (forced grouping, etc.) I will walk away and never come back.


P.S. Try to figure out what keeps us playing. Because I really think you have no idea. You guys killed AC2. It had a chance, but despite what we (AC1 players) told you about forced grouping, you had to try to appeal to the EQ types. Don't you get it yet? EQ types are already playing EQ.

[GraceMolloy]

Guys I love all of you at turbine but City of Heroes just got one of my two 4.5 year old accounts.

If your focus contines to be on **** instead of things that actually matter ( ie. content? new toys? new skills? <-- big one <-- new SOMETHING instead of useless FISHING?!?!? nerfs? why waste the time ladies and gents? Waste waste waste. ) Then it will get the other account as well.


Edit:
that star above is c r a p by the way .. no idea why the board edits that. not like it's a bad word or anything.

[toger]

Originally posted by Cuttler
I beg to differ with you on the power of the classes Toger. My level 102 mage can make more xp per hour solo then my level 149 sword character can make solo. In fact, I have no place that I can make decient xp on my sword character unless she's in a fellowship at the VoD or caul. And she certainally cannot go to those places solo.

As far as I'm concerned, stopping to vuln or imp my own creatures as a melee only lesses the xp I make because it wastes time switching from a casting device to a weapon and shield. Add the high number of evades before landing the spell and its totally worthless as a means to keep up with the amount of xp needed to raise a skill at that level. Rend weapons help when not but not as much as a rended casting device helps a mage. Mages SOLO are the most powerful class in this game.

But can that mage make enough pyreals to keep up with the comp burn, i know mine cannot. I should not be forced to loot everything i see out there to get cash to supply myself. I enjoy being able to hunt anyplace and not worrie about cash for comps i have better things to do than loot for cash, i think all cash should be taken out of hte game completly and replaced with credit cards, every time you open a critter it auto updates your card with this weeks total.

NERF Pyreals I WANT CREDIT CARDS

[goldeelox]

I have never chained, or macroed goods to sell to venders. I make my stuff in my own basement for use by myself and my vassels. I waited until my chars were in their 80's to pick up these skills now you do things to make the reason I wanted them no longer valid. I think the items that can be made should be very useful for game play after all we are spending credits/points and time to do the skill and buying the supplies. I don't believe in make / sell as you are trying to stop which is fine by me, BUT I would like to see these skills actually be useful and valueable as in for game play benifits. LOL I now have a few 100 health and mana elixers in my trunk and I can loot better? Why didn't you just drop the sell value to vender and it wouldn't be profitable to make / sell. Sometimes I believe you can't see the forest for the trees, don't complicate the problems, just fix the part thats broke.
Otherwise I have been having fun with the new game content. Ya'll are doing a good job updating the play content. It has however been difficult to collect enough salvage to land anything. I seem to constantly fail now on imbudes and have 500+ skill before brill. I think the way the average goes should be looked at person to person rather than server wide, whoever has spent time figuring out your system gets multi imbudes and us that don't look to profit / sell are getting squat. I just wanna play :)
Goldeelox
Onward Thru The Fog.

[GraceMolloy]

Random Number Generator

there is no "system" people get un/lucky. I've landed 11 straight and missed 25 straight. (that was a bad week).

As for the rest ya I think they are wasting their time and ours with some of the recent changes.

[Russ China]

The new NPC's will be like the unemployment clerks of AC.
Just show up once in a wile and collect LOL.
I can definitely see this reducing the amount of code I have to crank out to produce the same results.

These guys are trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

[Lumpus]

>>Orion has said for many months that cooking was something he wanted to give love to.

LOL. I've been hearing that since 2001 when they said that they wanted more folks to have tradeskills on their "main characters", not as mules.

>>Good macros today make what? An couple M a day? A 20 minute run for a lvl 7 toon from top to bottom of Drudge Hideout nets a D note... Which is more damaging?

Money clearly can't be the issue. A level 6 character can net a couple of M's from a single buff cycle in Olthoi Arcade. If the "problem" is really a Lag issue fix the cause.

>>You know...an equally effective solution is to just remove all crafted foods except for rations from the game. They have absolutely no purpose, as anything they can provide can be gotten cheaper directly from an NPC. At one time a cook could support her stam needs while fighting by cooking up the foods she found on monsters, but that was removed. HH Pizza and Kimchi used to be worthwhile, but now the equivalent and better is bought over the counter from merchants. There is not a SINGLE food that has any purpose in the game.

Exactly. The only item my Cook ever makes anymore is Wedding Cakes for Monarchy Weddings... that's it. Utterly useless.

>>This is the crux of my objection. My crafting toon has in effect had his livelihood taken away and is being offered a welfare program in its place. I can no longer make a living practicing my craft in the normal way, by making useful products for sale to town merchants. Instead I must now apply to some NPC civil servant for make-work projects of no real utility to the game economy. From a role-playing perspective, crafters are being taken out of the work force and put on the dole. That's what this comes down to. Even if the XP and cash rewards are actually better this way, it's still an insult to honest, hardworking roleplayers.

/applauds. That sums up the situation in a nutshell. At least a few years ago I used to be needed to make the Excellent Oiled Strings for the Comp Bow quest... not anymore.

>>I do think that this change is part of a pattern of "fixing" things that aren't broken, and making the fix worse than the "disease".

I can think of at least 50 other things on the top of my head that are far more important uses of limited Dev programing time than mores nerfs to crafting and fishing.

[Cuttler]

Originally posted by toger
But can that mage make enough pyreals to keep up with the comp burn, i know mine cannot. I should not be forced to loot everything i see out there to get cash to supply myself. I enjoy being able to hunt anyplace and not worrie about cash for comps i have better things to do than loot for cash, i think all cash should be taken out of hte game completly and replaced with credit cards, every time you open a critter it auto updates your card with this weeks total.

NERF Pyreals I WANT CREDIT CARDS

Actually yes I can support my mage, now that the peas are sorta back I just pick them up and salvage all silver and gold and I have enough for comp replacement. And stopping to loot for money on my mage still nets me more xp per hour than playing my melee does. Though the credit card is a nice idea.

[ninjalo]

I think it's diabolical that you can claim some one ran so many macro's that it gave one of your servers trouble. What are you running AC on now, 486's? Now we know why the lag is worse than it's been in years. You've downgraded all the servers to such a level they cant support your current playerbase.

You want/expect new players to join when you cant even support the ones you have?

As for the bit about you've received a large number of complaints about
trades macro's. I've seen less noise about that on ANY boards and in
game than I have about a new PK server, UCM, Lag, Lost equipment,
Trade window crashes, Verbal abuse, harassment and just about every other thing anyone could find to complain about. When is the trade window bug going to be fixed? Thats been there since secure trade was created (over 3 years ago). How about the invisible people at the mansions?


reposted...sorta.

[D X Mage]

now to nerf fishing? I guess my going from 9 down to 2 accounts has no impact. The only reason I have the two accounts going now is cause one is the clan buff bot. I suppose if you were to nerf that then there would be no reason left to play the game.

[KITANIGHT]

I thought the more you used a skill was how you built it up. You know you learn to make something i.e. arrows and you make a lot to you get skill points for using your skill.
I think the decreasing value would be a better solution than ending the ablilty for those who choose to be crafters from practincing their skills.
When the new arrows came out a while back, it was allowed that everyone could make and sell them for about two weeks I think. and then the resell value went down. It was intended for people to make some money.
while macroing is a problem, you must consider everyone when making a decision like this.
you are taking away a very valueable skill building alternative for new players.
Some use this as a way to pay for things they need.
it would be better to use the decreasing value option.
why not create a poll and let people vote on options on how to resolve this issue. i hate to see people quit because of things like this.
let's not take all the fun out of ac.


kitanight
"and that's the bottom line"

[BarleyKing]

While I disdain most macros I luv decal as to me it augments the GUI with many features not present. Most importantly it allows greater custimization for each individual. If there were no decal I'd drop my acct. Playing would be painfully tedious.

[goldeelox]

To true Kingly one! The multi tells are easily answered with the meg program and navigation and tracking are good to have also:)
I actually like to use robochef for elixers and such but as previously stated I make my stuff for my own chars and vassels in the privacy of my basement.

[Bob Crumb]

IBN

The views from the player base are largely in and are consistently negative to this change. I asked several days ago for Turbines response from you (as you are the voice of Turbine on these boards.)

Why are you silent? Now is the time for Turbine to again say

"We want to thank the player base feedback. We realize our proposed change needs rethinking, revisions, and our new plan again socialized with the player base. We will not be implementing the proposed crafting changes as previously announced.

There ya go - made it easy for you by writing the response text. No copywrite - free for you to use.

IBN - whether this is your response or not to be true to the "new player comment centric Turbine" you must tell us what your plans are and what the rationale is for their implementation. We expect this.

Bob Crumb

ps. if for some reason you feel this feedback is not necessary, may I remind you of a similar way Turbine "announced" an unwanted change and Turbine's "doh" moment:
(Jessica@01:06) let me preface the answer with something we discussed today
(Jessica@01:06) I was trolling the boards last night and reading the, uh, outrage over the debuff issue
(Jessica@01:06) in the middle of that, shadowcouncil's PM arrived
(Jessica@01:07) so we started communicating and one thing led to another
(Jessica@01:07) once we were scheduled, I had a meeting with some of the team at Turbine
(Jessica@01:08) to go over this whole issue. Pretty much the first thing said was, "If they knew what was coming in April, they wouldn't be so mad!"
(Jessica@01:08) At which point, someone else said, "Uh... should we tell them?"
(Jessica@01:08) It was a real Doh! moment for us.
(Jessica@01:08) The lesson there was, we should have come to you much sooner
(Jessica@01:09) with our complete thoughts on what we wanted to do with PvP
(Jessica@01:09) instead of trickling it out. Frankly, that was stupid of us
(Jessica@01:10) and we apologize.

[Tarasque]

Am neutral on the issue of money macros, and am happy that you actually work to fix a problem instead of beating the heck out of your player base, but more importantly I am really glad you didn't pull another boneheaded stunt like banning for it.

[Dom on TD]

Exploit early Exploit often. That's the Golden Rule here in AC. Eventually, all the easy money/easy XP will be nerfed. Just do what you can while you can.

*raises his hand* I participated in 2 of the largest money making macros. I made tons of plats and had them all deleted with my buffbot.(I still haven't fogiven the wife for that.) I wish I could get them back while I sleep and work for 1 reason. Plats are too expensive for the extra little bit they add. Buffing with 6's is out of the question, since they are dispelled so easily and the timer is shorter. BUT, I won't lose any sleep over this. I'll just hunt for money to buy plats. Yes, it takes away from my enjoyment of the game, but since Turbine wants AC to be like RL, instead of a fantasy world, I have to make a sacrifice and spend 1/3 of my game time at my fulltime job....Loot hunting. I feel retarded working 2 jobs IRL, and when I do have time to play a game, I have to work for the ability to go kill things my level.

Don't be mad because Turbine finally got tired of chasing macros to figure out how to stop them. Be mad because Ibn has repeated over and over that cooks need love, but won't say when or how they'll get it. Be mad because Platinum Scarabs cost 40 times the amount that Pyreal Scarabs cost, and are a requirement for hunting if you're over level 70. Be mad that the only way to level your non-combatant trades character will be a quest that will more than likely have a 1 month timer on it.(1 month timers seem to be a trend lately.) Be mad because they promised to keep us updated, but we keep being surprised by things like this. Be mad because I spent 12 sings on a Shield for my vassal that quit playing less than a month later.....err, NM, I'll just be mad about that one alone. But don't be mad about this change. Applaud them for the attempt to stop evil-doers such as myself. Pat them on the back for remembering to include people that use fish macros to collect steel and iron. Give them a cookie for moving those annoying tradebots out of the center of the market. Finally, remember to exploit every time the opportunity arises.

[ElgarL]

The ONE mistake here was bad planning. We've experienced it in the past and I'm sure we'll experience it again. Implementing a nerf when you dont have a fix ready to go in at the same time is the problem.

Nerf the sell rates if you feel you have too, but dont do it until there is a suitable replacement for that mechanic designed and ready to go in.
The majority of posters here dont disagree with you fixing something that you feel is broken. They DO have a problem with you breaking something because you feel it needs fixing.

A nerf without a suitable fix is not fixing a problem it's just breaking and making something useless until such a time as you manage to develop a fix for it. If that ever actually happens.

[KPD157]

They nerfed alot of things without ever having a way around the Nerf.

XP from Item ID, Casting spells, Etc.

The only thing they cannot nerf for XP is Monsters.

Crafting recently has become scrutinized you say ?) and Fishing too since someone decided to tie the Baby with the Bathwater :)

Balony. Crafting has never been the way to make money in its self. The only people who craft for a living use bots to do it. The True Craft person will rise again with the change just like the True Allegiance Members have from the 2 months after the XP pass up changes.

People will complain when it hits them hardest thats all I hear here about posts that are against the Nerf :)

There are 4 types of Extremist and people against It :)

1) The Practical Thinkers (These are the ones who come up with another way to get around the Nerf as a solution) People like this think that nerfing the fishing loot is the answer. Making it so that Crafting Macroes have to spread out to avoid a timer or limit system. A Macro doesn't think for itself and must be programmed extensively to compensate for things that randomly happen. Thats the only Practical way for turbine to nerf any of these Macroes :)

2) Its too Late we like it guys (These people just have enjoyed it so much and gotten used to it they don't want it removed because its become a playstyle) They claim something is being taken away from them that they earned having. These sorts are very silly and don't need examples mentioned :)

3) Nerfs are Bad we don't need any more Whiner types (These people whine any time something is taken away. Even if it hurt the game alot and alot of people were for the Nerf) Cannot say nothing about these types everyone loves to hate them :)

4) There are Better things to do with your Time Turbine Experts (These People have the Idea that the Nerf or change is not worth it while other topics of conciderabley of greater importance to themselves are not being dealt with to their Satisfaction) These guys are really good almost as fun to watch as the 1st group. They don't trust Turbine's judgement on what to fix or improve first they think they know Turbine's goals and plans for the future. They tend to also not see the bigger picture that Turbine sees down the road .

I have noticed all this from watching posters on this Thread and I am sure if you work hard on it you can make a longer list of points showing those who are for the Nerf, breaking it down into catagories. My main reason I wanted to express this is for point 4's ending in bold. If you cannot give a better reason for disagreeing with the Nerf than those 4 points of views above then I am not convinced that Turbine is doing anything Wrong with the Nerf. Infact I am more behind them now even if my Proposal to fix it isn't ever implemented but at least I thought of a way to make the Macroes go away not just made an excuse for them or others like them :)

[dryde]

all right guys you have all whined in one form or another. It is time to make some proposals. What would we like to see turbine do? Me personally, I would like to have access to lvl 7 spells using my cooking and alchemy skills.

use cooking for critter spells
use alchemy for the item spells (we alrdy have L 6 life pros. why
not L 7 life pro's turbine?)
Most people that actually have and play trade char loved the idea of spells research. Atleast i did. I play my trade char. I make health potions, mana potions, and gems if need be (btw turbine thanx for making gems stackable). buff me and my weapon ( trained item and critter) and run around picking plants and killing what i feel like killing. but to be able to drop my magic skills and train missile and melee would be really cool:) so here are my proposals for incorporating magic into alchemy and cooking.

First supply the cook/alch w/ a recipe book instead of a spell book
when they learn a new recipe through research. Then when they want to make it they go to their recipe book type in how much the crafter wants of each item and clicks create. You know something like robo chef.Come on turbine get real it is really boring hitting quick keys (1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2 yawn).

use cooking to create critter spells i wouldn't see any problem using the old combination of spell comps but leave out the scarab (you all remember this scarab,taper,herb,taper,potion,powder talisman...... err something like that). Put all those things into the crucible. Then use the new aqua vitae on the mixture. Then apply the whole mixture to a piece of food that determines the lvl of the spell. Make the supplies for the food just as available as the spell comps. I can understand hunting golems for the motes so having to hunt 1 creature to cast spells isn't bad.


Use alchemy to create item spells. Make the process the same as when creating the life pro gems. Just when you double click the gem that you made you then click on the item that the spell is to be cast on. That simple.

I don't believe in having gems that cast negative spells that would just be too difficult.

Well instead of whining here are my suggestions. What are yours?

[ninjalo]

i love how ibn has stopped commenting on this thread.

[KPD157]

I think it could be done but we really have to start up the appropriate thread for it to get discussed properly. This is to talk about the Crafting changes proposed and what we think about it :)

I wouldn't be surprised if Ibn comments on it soon I beleive his abscense is due to being in meetings on what to do about the VT openning and all the changes needed :)

dryde I would love to participate in a General Forum discussion about your proposal if you would start it up :)

I still would like to see any other alternatives than the one I gave up somewhere above that seems to have gotten lost in the mass of why its not good comments and non constructive Synasicim gah I cannot spell the word :) Means your a critic and not constructive also hehehehe :)

Edit for Dryde This is the Post we are giving Feed back on :)
http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=242

The Alternative Suggestions for dealing with the problem of Money Macroes was what I was talking about in the posts above :)

[dryde]

thread started at: Asheron's Call Forums > General Forums > Asheron's Call Discussions > Proposed changes to crafting