Confectioner Preview - Feedback Thread

[Bori Grimbattle]

Seems to me that ......

A) Recent PB change limits cash to lower level crafters. We do not have to reopen that discussion here.

B) No item decay to Tier 6 exacerbates the above

C) Confectioners of all levels will have a continuous demand for their product with the removal of Ambrosia.

D) Although long ovrdue the total dependancy on Confectioners to provide DP reduction at a reasonable rate will make them the richest crafter group in the game.

E) As someone mentioned above once one has the jewelry,armor,weapons he/she requires for their level range that market is dead. Confectioners will always be in demand from Tier 1 to Tier 6, even with a low server population base.

My opinion... once again things are being done without looking at the changes that will affect other groups. The money from adventurers will be spent on DP reducing foods and NOT as much on tools,armor or weapons. Even Alchemy potions are not required to keep playing however saddled with a dozen DPs or so Foods will be a necessary item with the lengthening of the DP penalty.

As well, dragons should not be dependant on biped style foods. Their physiology is different from bipeds. They should have their own confectioners and their own foods/methods to reduce DPs. Really now, what self respecting Dragon wants to sit down to a meal of carrot soup? They cannot even harvest organics s why should they be forced to depend on them for DP reduction?

Step back and look at the forest as a whole and not just the single tree. That is where the mistakes are being made. Once again, that is my opinion.

[Tzael]

Yeah, that's exactly my concern with this xp system - not that I'm not going to get enough xp in the end, but that I'll not get anywhere with hours of work because I'm not making final products all the time. After a few hours of gathering a long list of ingredients and processing or double-processing some of them with no result xp-wise, I'll be ready to throw in the towel. [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-6.gif[/img]

Tell me gena_st, which craft schools get experience for gathering resources ? You replied to a post of Rawdge's where he commented how it could be tedious to be gathering lots of resources whilst not getting any experience. No schools get experience from gathering resources. Don't fret over it.

Now when it comes to processing the resources (or in some cases double-processing) you're going to get experience for that. I don't know where you've got the idea that you won't receive anything for this effort. Processing ingredients for food uses the cooking skill, unless Tulga introduce a new skill especially foringredient preparation and don't make it a primary skill for CNFs. Highly unlikely that they would do such a thing. Rest assured when you're processing your ingredients, you'll be getting experience because that processing requires cooking skill, nothing else. Where would a confectioner be if cooking was not a primary skill ?

[belezar]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]belezar wrote:
Agree with your comments on WOW and EQ2 also has a well designed consignment and economic model that really gives buyers and sellers a dynamic marketplace.

Our Horzons economy is severely hamstrung by low player population and a system that hides the market value of goods in the economy.


There's two aspects of EQ2 which allows greater player selection of player made products and I doubt either would be popular with HZ players. First, in EQ2 EVERYTHING has to be attuned before you can use it. This includes all player crafted items. You can't give your item to someone else when you're through with it. You can sell it to an NPC or you can destory it.

Second, the products aren't nearly as customizeable since there are no techniques in wide use. While there are a few different lines of items at various level ranges, there is not NEARLY the range of items possible with techniques which can be mixed and matched to fit each player's style and what they consider important. By making everything the same, it makes it easier to sell in bulk.

If HZ had no techs either it would be simple for a crafter to make a bunch of items and put them on a consigner and for others to come by and purchase them. Most people would be buying most of their equipment off consigners if that were the case. And everyone of a given profession and level would be using one of two or three types of equipment because that's all the variety there would be (like all the 30s tanks in EQ2 were wearing vanguard and all the 20s tanks were wearing quest armor). Because there's far less variety. Because of the techniques, and the fact that HZ players like their items customized for their playing style, this isn't practical. But the techniques are what make HZ equipment so unique -- the fact that you can have something made to be strong in what YOU want it to be strong in. I just don't see the EQ2 system being popular here.

People don't realize it because they're so immersed in it, but customizeable equipment via techniques are a very powerful featureof HZ.

So yea, all you have to do to get that style of economy is remove all techniques and make EVERYTHING no drop. I think most would consider that price to be too high.

Yes I agree that the EQ2 economic system is powerful because it creates a market where buyers and sellers can interact.

I disagree if you believe you have to remove techniques and make everything attuneable.

Incentive To List And Participate In a Market
EQ2 charges commision on sale after the sale is made. You can list a limited amount indefinately from your own room, which comes with your account. something like 48 items being the maximum. This provides incentive for listing, it allows sellers to adjust prices in accordance to market forces not be penalised up front for simply listing an item.

Highly Specalised Customization's and Generic Equipment
YES Horizons is very customizable with items and techs! You are assuming an economy where everyone is so different that a crafter could not possibly concieve a way to create items that would sell in the market place. You disappoint me Goriax really you do. Considering in my time as a blacksmith I've had cargo gear donated to me with cooking bonuses I'd say you would be incorrect in your assertion.

I see an economy of individuals at different levels of development and access to money, both buyers and sellers without access to a market

As a blacksmith here are some items I think would sell in all tier ranges, not to mention their plain variety.

Mining picks of mining, quarrying or mining and quarrying or socket then they would sell.

Axe of logging

Chisel of stoneworking

Smelting tongs of smelting

Fitting hammer of fitting

I assume fletchers would add bow skill and piercing possibly dexterity.

Now it may be as that a smith (such as me) has no mining IV tech and applies mining III or even mining II to a cobalt mining pick. Someone may find this useful. I use a cobalt pick with a T3 mining application, originally I just used a regular cobalt mining pick.

I think it's a curious proposition to say that a wide diversity of people in levels, goals and financial ability would be uninterested in browsing a market that puts them in touch with sellers equally diverse.

For example currently Im looking for regular plain ironsilk cargo gear. I would buy it unteched just for the additional capacity at this stage as my finances cannot afford full teched ironsilk. If I even found some ironsilk with T1 or T2 techs bundled into it, I would buy it even if it was a non related field. If it were T3 or higher techs and priced appropriately then I would have to be more selective. Now if there was a way of sellers to display without 10% penalty up front and list items at their leisure it would work.

Consideration of EQ2 Style Attunement and Horizons
Attuenement is a method of supposedly keeping rare items rare and crafted items in demand it's a balance consideration that the devs would have considered at the design stage. I do not think this poses an issue in Horizons especially if the scenario you paint is true (where each character's equipment requirements are so unique essentially it's attuned already) , not to mention horizons purpose bulit an economy with no attunement in it.

The existing economy has no attunement and players are free to list their used equipment for sale, hand it to their guild or give it away to player in game. The ability of said players to list such items in an EQ2 type system would NOT be detrimental to the functioning of the economy. In my mind it could only strengthen the economy by actually providing a marketplace.

[Dragoniade]

My personnal opinion regarding attunement is, make all items attuned upon equiping, NOT receiving.

Also, I don't think removing the tech would solve anything. Heck, some race HAS to rely on technique to even be able to be reach the minimum skill required for an item. Some items can be easily teched in advance, but that's mostly tools or weapons. Armors and such, are usually per order, just like in real life.

Sadly, the confectioner bring another issue about decay. Confectioner's goods are kind of decaying. You got X food, you use Y, you end up with X-Y lefts. That's decay.
You have a sword. You use it X time, you can still use it. No decay.

And that's what hurting the economy, and that's what will make Confectioner the only class (except for alchemist) that is economically viable.

There will be a demand for food, since the game functionnality is being altered for them. Sadly, dragon didn't get the same treatment when the lairshapping got introduced and I doubt that blacksmith, armorer, weaponsmith, outfitter, and all the other classes are going to get a tastes of a friendly economy.

Why does increasing Death Point to 24 hours and penalizing up to 75% is an acceptable change to allow confectioners to prosper, but adding item decay isn't acceptable to allow nearly EVERY other school to prosper?

[Goriax]

Yes I agree that the EQ2 economic system is powerful because it creates a market where buyers and sellers can interact.

It works because there aren't that many things being sold. Buyers and sellers can interact just fine through the consigners and the seller doesn't even have to be online to do it (something EQ2 is still struggling with and on which it is far far behind HZ) For example, if you're a tank and want to buy a heavy armor chest piece, there's only a couple different types you'll be interested in. Don't bother about getting it customized via techs because there aren't any. Decide which of the 2-3 pieces you want and pick the one with the best price.

Therefore, people can list the chest pieces and you can pick one of the couple based on price. By contrast, in HZ, once you add techs, there's HUNDREDS of different combinations of techs at high level. Most players have a pretty good idea what they want. People selling can't supply hundreds of items with different techs, especially when each requires hard to find comps. Consequently, people don't buy stuff off the consigners but instead go to a crafter and have them make it for them to order.

It's the difference between identical mass produced stuff with little selection, and made to order stuff with a huge selection.

I disagree if you believe you have to remove techniques

And as I just showed, if you want the EQ2 style, you have to remove techniques so as to reduce the variety. I think HZ players would rather deal with the huge variety.

and make everything attuneable.

Perhaps not. EQ2 did it as a less obnoxious way of removing stuff from the market over item decay. Either way, HZ players aren't going to like it.

Incentive To List And Participate In a Market
EQ2 charges commision on sale after the sale is made. You can list a limited amount indefinately from your own room, which comes with your account.

I don't think the commision matters unless you're listing huge numbers of items which don't sell. I hardly look at it, because most of the stuff I list sells, in which case the commision quickly becomes negligable. If you aren't selling at least 10% of what you list you've got other problems. Like not knowing your market.You also failed tomention thatEQ2 you have to supply the space to hold them compared to HZ where the consigner holds them.

But of course that isn't the real problem with EQ2. The real problem is thatto list most items you have to remain online. That sure kept me from listing much. I understand that you can now list a FEW things from your room storage offlineand maybe it's possible to do more (I stopped playing that piece of crap game). But that number is VERY limited unless you buy a VERY expensive room which does NOT come with the account.

Highly Specalised Customization's and Generic Equipment
YES Horizons is very customizable with items and techs! You are assuming an economy where everyone is so different that a crafter could not possibly concieve a way to create items that would sell in the market place. You disappoint me Goriax really you do. Considering in my time as a blacksmith I've had cargo gear donated to me with cooking bonuses I'd say you would be incorrect in your assertion.

Every person I play with, when it's time for new armor they decide for themselves what they want. I've never seen a crafter make teched armor for putting on the consigner. Are you saying you do? If you do you're the first. (That question isrhetorical, I'm ending this discussion as I say below)

This is getting far afield. The fact of the matter is, that the HZ consignment system is far superiorto whatEQ2 has. EQ2 manages a market because there are so few styles of equipment. While they do have one advantage (a global in-game listing for your city showing everything listed everywhere -- something you have to go to the HZ web site to see the equivalent of). That's pretty much it. Unless you think variety is bad.

This whole EQ2 vs HZ consignment system is getting far afield, and with that post, and withthe insults in it, I feel no desire to continue discussion so will not respond to or even read posts involving EQ2economy vs HZ economyonthis thread. If you want to discuss EQ2 vs HZ economy then start a thread on that subject. Don't hijack the confectioner thread.

------------------------

It's time to get back to the real issue on this thread, which is confectioners. I apologize to readers of this thread for letting myself get diverted.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Just curious what do the last few posts have to do with Confectioners? I know consigners are an important discussion - but what is this thread topic about again?

[cattoy]

Just curious what do the last few posts have to do with Confectioners? I know consigners are an important discussion - but what is this thread topic about again?

Because somebody thinks confectioners are going to get unreasonably rich because of the changes made to DP and food.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Well, its about time that confectioners had a value to the marketplace.....

If they spread out the way special food resources can be obtained THEN maybe others can share in the wealth. As it stands right now, the Vielo will just get richer too, oh and they <Vielo>will dictate the prices that Confectioners must charge - NOT a fan of this senario at all.

[Goriax]

I wish anything I played had the kind of value in the marketplace that confectioners will have. In fact NOBODY will have more value in the marketplace. Heh, I wish my dragon had ANY value in the marketplace besides to other dragons.

There's a lot of unknowns here and many of the biggest are the kind which even TG can't know. By making confectioners an absolutely essential part of gameplay, they're putting their game in the hands of the confectionersand the economy in meals which they'll produce. As I see it, whether this is going to work will depend on two things:

1. Confectioners HAVE to put meals on the consigners in large quantities. This can't be an occasional thing. It should be possible to go to the consigner of any major town (Kion, Dralk, Augendell, Dalimond etc.) and find a variety of meals in several tiers.There can't be any of the confectioner equivalent of grinding huge quantities of gems and pawning them (or in this case grinding huge quantities of meals and pawning them. Some people are saying this can still be done). No. It MUST be in the best interest of the confectioners to keep the consigners well stocked. The best way I can think to do that is to have it so experience only comes from making finished meals (which TG indicates will be the case), and for there to be some unavoidable cost in making those meals such that they'll want to recover their costs (vielo? although I didn't think vielo are planned to berequired for everything). Pawnbrokers must offer little or nothing for meals so that pawning isn't an option. Those meals have GOT to get into the hands of other players. If there is a way for confectioners to gain experience without providing meals to other players this will probably fall apart and we'll just have a game with 24 hour deathpoint reduction and no practical way for non-confectioners to reduce it. So confectioners must be very motivated to provide their meals to players. That's the price of being an essential part of the economy.

2. The costs of the meals must be reasonable. If it costs 100 sp to knock 16 hours off a death point for a tier 5 character (so it's back to the current 8 hours) then that's too expensive. I'm not sure what WOULD be reasonable but 100 sp is not. Perhaps 10 sp. Perhaps 2 sp. Something in that range perhaps. There are two market forces at work here. Obviously the cost to make the meal will always be less then the price the confectioner sells it for (assuming he's working in his own best interest, which is the only reasonable assumption to make in designing something like this). There must be enough competition so that the price will be driven down to slightly more then the cost to make the meal and that confectioners know that if they put unreasonable prices on their meals those meals won't sell. When you take into account the fact that not everything will sell and the cost to make that meal would be lost in those cases,perhaps it would be reasonable if the price ended up at 50% more then the price to make it.

In any event, if this is going to work, confectioners must be very aware of the market and very motivated to try to provide what people want. There must be enough competition so that prices are kept reasonable -- one confectioner can't charge obscene prices knowing someone will buy his goods anyway.

That's the price of being given an essential role. You HAVE to fulfill that role.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Only problem I see with point 2 is TG has decided to use the Vielo which will influence the price and probably inflate it somewhat. Too bad they did not it was a good ideato give Enchanters and Alchemists the ability, thru forms, to transmute dropped items from mobs (which would involve even more classes and even dragons) or plain old resources into the specialized food ingedients.

That would atleast give some fluxuation to food prices, since the Vielo are static when it comes to pricing items you buy from them.

I still don't see how using an NPC will help drive a player based economy.

BTW, for those that think I have alterior motives, I'm not a Confectioner by trade. I'll admit to being an Alchemist and an Enchanter but my reason for harping on this issue in my last few posts is because I truly do believe that using Tarrifs/Price Fixing (ie Vielo) is damaging to the economy. It will only end up limiting how much gets sold or force more players to take up the confectioner classto fulfill their own needs and keep the costs down. Either way, it probably won't drive the Food Market.

[Sergon]

Thoughts from an old confectioner from Expanse....

To the person thinking confectioners will become rich... WTF are you smoking???

Since Beta, the confectioner class has not been a vital part of Horizons.... We had the Spun Sugar and Candied Carrots formula for over a year without sugar being placed in the game!!! That alone shows you how much attention the class received from the powers that be. Then they introduced bread bowls at the last winter festival, wow a new food! Oh wait, you can only BUY them from a festival merchant! [:@]

Because the community as a whole is not interested in foods, we were forced to make foods and sell them to the pawnbrokers to level. (No longer an option, unless you want to get ripped off) Due to restrictions on Consigners, trying to place foods on a consigner is often a headache because you have to pick and choose which foods to sell. Then people ********** because they are paying slightly above what the pawnbroker pays you simply to recover the 10% consigning cost. (No major money there)

Once you get to Journeyman foods, you're stuck... No higher level forms to level with except for containers! Hmmm... Lets see, let me make tons of containers and sell them... oh wait, can't do that because now the pawnbrokers won't pay anything for them... (No major money there)

So let's see, let's spend hours and hours at the crater south of tazoon mining blighted sandstone for Essence of Blight drops... Then you get some idiot on Marketplace saying, I'll give you he EOB & Soul Frags for the Ambrosia, then they ********** because you charge them for your time to gather milk, flour, and clay. (No major money there)

Recently, expert candy, punch, and cookie forms were made available.. Guess what? The Vielo have the ingredients you need to make them & people ********** because food cost more than 100cp. Then once they get the food it takes up a gift slot! (No major money there)



In order to make confectioners a viable class, you need to make it a routine part of the game, require it to remove deathpoint time or give it another purpose. I would suggest something like the following:

Allow Ambrosia to be used only once every 8 hours, or require a new drop only ingredient which is RARE. Increase DP time to 12 hours per dp and decreasing the offline dp removal in half.



Change the dp reduction times on all foods, making EVERY tier reduce time based on level:

Tier 1 & 2 foods: (5 minute recycle time)
10 - 15 minutedp reduction lvl (1 - 40)
5- 10 minute dp reduction lvl (41 - 80)
1- 5 minute dp reduction lvl (81+)

Tier3 & 4foods: (10 minute recycle time)
20 - 25 minutes dp reduction lvl (1 - 40)
15 - 20 minutes dp reduction lvl (41 - 80)
10 - 15 minutes dp reduction lvl (81+)

Tier 5 & 6 foods: (15 minute recycle time)
30 - 35 minutes dp reduction lvl (1 - 40)
25 - 30 minutes dp reduction lvl (41 - 80)
20 - 25 minutes dp reduction lvl (81+)


Also..GiveBonusdp reduction time for eatingitems in a combo, say abeer/soup/kabob/cake, next tier ale/spiced soup/marinatedbeef/iced cake, next tier wine/creamy soup/spiced marinated steak/apple pieal'a mode. Make it fun and creative...

Another thing... get rid of special foods requiring a gift slot! Thismakes every specialty food worthless on the market...



FoodTechs....

Start off with generic foods & add techs to them..

Beef Patty - Tier 1
Raw Beef
- Seasoning Tech I
Salt - addsan additional minuteof dp reduction

Hamburger - Tier 2
Bread
Raw Beef
- Seasoning Tech I
Salt - addsan additional minuteof dp reduction
- Seasoning Tech II
Pepper - addsan additional 2 minutesof dp reduction

Cheeseburger
Bread
Raw Beef
Cheese
-Seasoning Tech I
- Seasoning Tech II
- Condiment Tech I
Lettuce - adds an additional 3 minutes of dp reduction

Etc...

- Condiment Tech II
Tomato - adds an additional 4 minutes of dp reduction


-Condiment Tech III
Onion - adds an additional 5 minutes of dp reduction



This allows theconfectioner to make even more sought after foods. Placing the"tech foodingredients" in places that are guarded, hidden, or randomly generated to make them harder to locate and find. [Y]


Ok? enough of my rants? I?m curious what others think!
*prepares for flames* [st]

[Sergon]

yeah the gf has played around with the browser settings.. [:@]

[Sergon]

Forgive me.. Worked too hard tonight and enjoying the bottle of scotch on my desk! [D]

[imported_tjl]

Forgive me.. Worked too hard tonight and enjoying the bottle of scotch on my desk! [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-46.gif[/img]

not your fault, you're using the forums as they were designed. they were just designed poorly IMO.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Sergon, I don't like your proposed DPTRs personally. Confectioners need to REDUCE the amount of foods it takes to remove a DP, not keep it the same/increase it. Your proposal doesn't help that much if at all.

Meals, Picnics, Platters, Smorgasbords, etc.... LARGE meals that give LARGE DPTR reductions in addition to the proposed foods is what's needed to facilitate lessening food consumption. People DO NOT want to carry around huge amounts of food to remove DPs. They want it quick and with as little hassle as possible. Ambrosia isn't popular for nothing. It's a 1 hit DP removal. Which would you rather have? 1 item and entire DP is gone or 100+ in 30 minutes - 2 hours and a DP is gone?

Even if the food consumption numbers were reduced to 30 it is STILL too much! And if the current system requires 30+ food items to be consumed before a DP is removed and FORCES players to choose either eating that much or waiting the 24 hours, then the new system will be no better than the current one. In fact, it will be WORSE because players will be forced to remove via hoards of food or nothing.

[Talitha]

Just as another little note....

Is it just me who wonders if the Miner/Gatherer classes are a bit extraneous in the current system? It seems like everything they can harvest, the crafting classes can already harves just fine for themselves, so apparently there's little to no market foraMiner/Gatherer'sservices. (I'm being concerned about this since my baby Sslik alt has Gatherer as one of his few professions--Outfitter/Gatherer type, emphasis on leather and food products.) If this is so, is there something that can be done to make these harvesting classes more useful/viable/needed for the community?

A couple of things I was wondering about that might help (but also might make people upset--I hope not!):
Gatherers: can gather organic resources, so they might supply certain things that no other organic resource-working class can procure. Other classes (such as Confectioner, for example) can use these processed resources in their formulae, but they cannotharvest them. Perhaps such things as the spices and whatnots the Vielo are supposedly cornering the market on.
Miners: can gather inorganic resources; stone/metal/gems. Similarly, perhaps there should be specialty or high-level resources which only a Miner can provide to the community--different metals and gems that have special uses in the new system. Perhaps a Miner might alsohave a percent chance to harvest a pop of certain tool/weapon/armor crystals while mining gems or some such, keyed to the tier and type of the gem node.

And perhaps both Miner and Gatherer might be the only classes who gain the ability to gather certain tech comps while doing normal harvesting, based on tier and craft/tool level. Since they are supposed to be specialists at acquiring resources. For example, a miner gets a percent chance to have a Nickel Golem Fragment or two pop in when he's harvesting from a fallen golem, or perhaps even a nickel node; or aGatherer might have a chance to get wolf fangs when skinning slain wolves. Making this tech-pop unique to these harvesting classes might make them more useful and their services more desired by the community.

^_^; Don't take my word as law; I don't know if this would help, or make things even more unbalanced. Just thinking out loud.

Thanks for listening!
~Talitha

[imported_Drakarr]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned previously, but with the 75% penalty cap, if you DO get 7 DP, and are say a 90 lvl crafter, you wont be crafting for a week, unless you REALLY want to do t1 or 2 stuff. Try quarrying marble with a 75% stat reduction.

[will rock]

Yes good point what if we want to craft off our dps still after getting say 5 deaths and we still dont want to pay CNF....What do we then? Play with the dp? That would really be awful. This is putting the death system in the palm of one class. That is to much power for one class....Why cant say alchemist also make some sort of potion that helps with dps? Another thing why cant there be healing kits in the game that outfitters can make from cloth. That another subject though. Until i see how it runs....IM putting my foot down and saying that is to much power for one class. No single class should rule the death point system.

[Senkeleron Fell]

Unless something has changed that I missed, the length of the Death Penalty will still not last as long as the Death Point. So you aren't going to end up with 24 hours of Death Penalty for each Death Point.

Is there a change to the length of time the penalty lasts?

[imported_Drakarr]

Exactly Kumu, I wasn't complaining, just pointing out something to those who may think that they wont care how long the deathpoint lasts, because they will just craft till they go away. I personally like the system. [:)]