Primary and Secondary Trade Feedback/Question

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Maina
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Primary and Secondary Trade Feedback/Question

Post by Maina »

So, when I made my latest character, I decided they were not the sort to get their hands dirty with gathering/manual labor crafts. I thought this might allow me to provide some RP with the people who do those crafts and provide space in the economy for more gatherers, since I recalled before a lot of people complaining about flooded markets. In my case, it is Tailoring.

In practice, I see primary trade (gathering/making parts) people saying that they can't sell their materials for a price that feels worth the effort. I lose riln when buying the parts from the market. The stuff I make (can't do Fine yet) costs more in materials than I get from selling it at the market. That's when I can; the market is often empty of the parts I need, and trying to buy from players tends to lead to complaints that it isn't worth it for them (though they, thankfully, are generous enough to sell directly anyway).

Is the intended design of the craft system that everyone provides their own raw materials? Or is it intended that some people specialize in one or the other and trade between players and the market? The former is maybe fine once we have a crafter's guild. The latter doesn't seem possible presently.
Gorth
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Re: Primary and Secondary Trade Feedback/Question

Post by Gorth »

I think this is an example of the game being in early stage development. I believe the eventual goal is for the Economy to be majorly player to player based, and I think raw material prices will be tweaked quite a lot.
For example, I think it's planned for lumbering on it's own to be a viable source of money, though you'd of course make even more using your own wood than selling, it'd just be a matter of what you've got the patience to do.
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Rias
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Re: Primary and Secondary Trade Feedback/Question

Post by Rias »

Ideally, players would find it worth providing things for/buying things from each other in all cases, whether that's gathered raw materials or crafted end goods. The complication I've run into with making gathering feel profitably worthwhile on its own is that it's going to boost the cost of crafted items as they take into account the cost of their parts. This could make basic tools and gear prohibitively expensive for people who are starting out or just aren't maxing out their riln production efficiency, and could then cause riln for other activities to be increased to address that, and then we're back to where we started but with higher numbers.

This all being my flunked-economics-in-high-school assessment. Someone with a better grasp on economics and numbers might be able to provide a viable solution, and I'd be happy to take any advice!
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Maina
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Re: Primary and Secondary Trade Feedback/Question

Post by Maina »

I think one way to handle this would be to establish an expected Riln-Per-Hour. That is, say, you expect people with 100 skill to be able to make 1000 riln an hour (just throwing numbers out, this is probably very strongly on the low end). Then you figure how many mobs a warrior of that skill level can kill in an hour and try to balance how much each mob has to provide the target number. Ideally, you scale this up as skill goes up.

Then, for gathering crafts, you look at how much a person with 100 in their primary craft can expect to produce in an hour and price it so that selling to the market provides 1000 riln an hour. Say a weaver can produce 4 cloth in an hour, then each cloth is worth 250 (once again, pulling random numbers out of thin air for illustration purposes).

Then you look at what a secondary crafter can make in an hour and set the value of that product to 1000 riln higher than the materials cost. Say they can make ten dresses in an hour and each dress takes 1000 in materials, then each dress should sell for 1100 riln.

This way, no matter what you are doing, your profit is worthwhile. This 'expected riln per hour' could and probably should be adjusted for risk/rarity. Combat might make a percentage more per hour than gatherers. Gatherers might earn a bit more than crafters, since you have to actually go out into the world and risk freezing/bandits/etc. Producing steel may give better RPH than copper because the resources are rarer and harder to find. But this seems like it might be a good baseline?
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nobody
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Re: Primary and Secondary Trade Feedback/Question

Post by nobody »

Maina wrote: Sat Jan 29, 2022 1:47 pmI think one way to handle this would be to establish an expected Riln-Per-Hour.
My own thinking on this is similar. Instead of having a materials up-charge, have material costs mostly pass through. Another way to think about this is that it should be profit-neutral to farm rimeveil, harvest, thresh, spin, weave, and sew it, OR to farm rimeveil and sell it to market, OR to buy rimeveil from the market and spin, weave and sew it. If you get paid the same no matter how you spend your (grind) time, the incentive shifts from pursuing what is most profitable per hour and more on just doing whatever it is you enjoy grinding. At least, that's what I think the dream goal is.

However, it is difficult to balance that because the game economy is already pretty complicated. It has passive time elements, active time elements, energy costs, one-time costs, tool costs and/or repair costs, rents, and farming even has unpredictable weather risk. Add to that the high variability of combat (length of battles, equipment damage and repair, health damage and healing costs) and the deliberate uncertainty of locksmithing tips. The level of analysis necessary to balance all of that is admittedly intense, enough so that I've only dipped my toes into it.
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