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Let's talk about commerce (:
I bloody hate it and here's why:
- Despite an indicated profit at distant trade posts, I'll either break even or lose money unless I'm using a letter.
- For whatever reason, you're punished for disconnecting/crashing by having some of your trade goods nicked, which for me means I've been handed an immediate loss of Ducats and the trip is now pointless.
- The prices for most goods, even before the genius idea to make the pet blueprints dependent on being sourced from a feature in the game that gets no work or attention in any regard, are usually already tanked.
- My gods, it is boring.
- To make any significant or meaningful profit, you must both rebirth into the Commerce talent and sink an incredible amount of gold into commerce oriented reforges and accessories. I shouldn't have to bankroll just to be able to reasonably participate in content.
I have no chance to obtain any of the pet blueprints, let alone my quickly discarded motivation to acquire all of them, with how the commerce system functions. This isn't new. Commercing has been nigh pointless shortly after it came out - there's an exceptionally good reason the amount of people doing this has been essentially zero before this pet update. Even now, I still don't seem many people willing to subject themselves to the literal torture that is this woefully broken 'feature'.
"Okay you don't like commercing, so what would make it better?"
Thank you for asking Anon, allow me to put my passive aggressiveness aside for a few moments to enlighten you.
- Reset trade good value on a weekly basis. I.e. Monday rolls around, and now all trade goods are sold at a minimum 20% profit at the nearest trade outpost, reasonably increasing as you travel to further trade posts, with the rate decaying as the week goes on and people sell goods.
- Alternate ways to go about obtaining Ducats: Commerce Field Bosses. Let me encounter one of these scary boss bandits I keep seeing during ambushes randomly, and defeat them for hefty bounties; 20,000 would be nice.
- Smuggler hunting. Smuggling is clearly a problem when you do it - so let me capture 'Smugglers' and 'confiscate' their trade goods, to return to their trade post of origin for a Good Bean reward. (NPC Smugglers of course, though the idea of ambushing some poor sod selling goods to the smuggler is appealing.)
I'm eager to hear your thoughts on commercing. Do you like it? Hate it? Tell me below - suggestions too, if you have them. Happy hunting, Milletians.
Comments
- new trade routes cause running all the Uladh trade routes over and over gets extremely boring after a while.
- a bandit doll bag that picks up bandit badges cause stopping to pick them up yourself is just a waste of time.
- more ways to use and spread Ducats like maybe having a trade imp that functions a bank for Ducats allowing us to make checks or sell stuff for Ducats instead of gold.
- better Ducats shop, like adding new useful items and lowering the prices of some items. (for example the moonlight dream catcher is 800k ducats when it should only be around 400k ducats cause at this point you can just get a demonic dream catcher for much less effort making the moonlight dream catcher almost useless.)
this idea is great, sounds similar to the Red Bandits that would appear at certain times and locations during the Naco Commerce event. sure they were not bosses but you didn't even have to doing commerce or bounty hunting to trigger them and their red bandit badges sold for a decent price as well. I think it would be a great idea if we had bandits spawning at certain times with a chance of a bounty hunter bandit boss possibly appearing offering a bigger reward if you defeat them. if it was just a natural event that happened maybe 3 or 4 times every real day instead we could fight them without needing to worry about them looting us and we could still encounter them during commerce if we want to. the Red Bandits were a very nice alternate way to earn some extra Ducats so it is sad something like that is not a permanent feature.
Maybe someone can confirm this but isn't it the case that if on a run you are D/Ced, that upon relogging if you then deliberately get robbed, that the D/C penalty in ducats gets seconded to the robbery and can be recovered by a bounty hunter?
The value of the goods in Ducats taken by the D/C penalty gets sent to a bounty board, and can be recovered without extra steps.
I don't do commerce because quite simply, it's boring. The only part of it that I really truly enjoy is bandit hunting, but the board is empty 90% of the time because... no one commerces.
Commerce Mission Board
Overall, as a software developer myself I know that all this stuff will take a long time to implement and test. However, if the company is invested in the game or the player base hopefully these comments in the thread can be taken into consideration.
One last thing, in all my time playing Mabinogi one of the things I always wanted to see was my characters doing commerce with my pets as the mounts pulling the cart, of course we got an Alpaca...but I want all the pets!
If anything, I think it should be based on a «real» economy of actual consumption-production, and even allow for Milletians to produce/manufacture «goods» that they can then «contribute» into the commerce «economy» to be delivered from one region to another. Unfortunately, most of the world is absolutely clueless about what makes for and develops an «economy» given all of the mis-information that leads many of the «college-
educated-indoctrinated» to falsely assume that «investors getting lots of money from the stock-market» some-how equates to a «good economy» ...what if ALL of those «investments» were for things like...: a «prison-industrial complex», «war» against other nations, the «sales» of «psychotropic» drugs, or even the «assassination» industry...? Would that make for a «good economy» to put 25% of the world in prison, obliterate 100% of the buildings of a foreign country, and cause permanent brain-damage to 50% of the youth-population, solely because it «props up» the «stock-market» ? I can tell you for a FACT that it does NOT «increase» the «happiness-level» of the vast majority of the population... even IF «legally» it is defined as «legitimate profits» that make «share-holders» (i.e.: investors) receive larger dividends.Sorry, I did not wish to go on what might be deemed a tangent, but I need to lay the proper ground-work and «foundation» for what would make the «Ducats "Economy"» more sensible & legitimate... rather than basing it on «arbitrary» numbers or the «stock-market» model revolving around Wall-Street. It would make sense if the materials being transported around were used as ingredients to produce a number of those items that get sold from the Ducats-Shop, and, for that matter, perhaps even more items could be added to the Ducats-Shop in the future (rather than having them spat out from Gachapons or Squire Supply Boxes). Archers have to use up so many more arrows these days to clear content than in the past, such to the point that the NPC-shop quivers are now somewhat obsolete or lacking in capacity, given that «stacks» of arrows can be obtained from other sources which stack not only up to just 500, but also 1000, and sometimes even 5000;
I would consider introducing routes/materials/trade-goods that contribute towards maybe something like a Fomor-Quiver (or Partholon-Quiver or give-it-what-ever-other-name-related-to-commerce-you-want Quiver), and that, upon sufficient materials being transported by enough Milletians, and enough time elapsing, that they then end up getting added to the shop on a quantity produced basis (sufficient materials/goods need to be transported & enough time-elapse for each quantity to be produced). And, of course, this can and perhaps even should be done with a number of other items, too, perhaps updated to be aligned more with newer-released content, such as a consumable purchased with Ducats that make running even a Veteran-Dungeon worth-while (possible effects of consumable : Durability Loss on equipment cut by half [or perhaps even up to 90% or higher depending on the grade/quality of said consumable], Room-Skip Ticket [basically makes it so that each room where a spawn-chest is open automatically drops the Key without spawning anything when the Skip-Ticket is used], Guaranteed 10cm of at least one or more of the newer Gems from End-Chest, or alternatively a minumum of 10 or more of the newer gems dropping from End-Chest, Damage Dealt 10x whilst in a Veteran-Dungeon, etc., etc.), just as a few random ideas of course.
For complexity, add in certain events that affect supply and demand. Such a method exists, if anyone has played Uncharted Waters Online. Such a system also exist in older trading/commerce games like Tradewinds or Patricians.
Something as simple as raising the prices of goods at a certain destination where the smuggler and his bandits have clogged up that trade lane. When the smuggler sells that day's goods, prices fall significantly where ever he sells it.
Add in time limits to recover stolen goods. Goods recovered in that time limit via the bounty board will return the full value of losses, while anything after that will give the insured amount of lost value.
Add in more variations of commerce quests via trade post and partners such as delivery requests.
And as for trade post expansions, I'll probably make a list later.
I can agree with most of this. the commerce system is a very solid system that mostly works just fine as it is with only a few minor bugs to iron out. however the biggest problem with commerce is it is the same old thing over and over again, commerce needs something new that makes it feel less repetitive and more alive and fun again.
- new trade routes in Iria would be a very nice change in scenery for old players that have run every commerce trade route a hundred times already.
- a bandit doll bag to pick up badges would be bringing back life into a failed part of commerce to begin with. badges are not worth much at all so picking them up yourself is really just a waste of time, red bandit badges are the only badges that ever sold for a decent price. so a doll bag to pick them up while we fight bandits would actually make badges useful again.
- a trade imp that functions as a bank for Ducats would be a pretty big change if we could sell things for Ducats and make checks with Ducats but if it was done right with a little bit of time I think it could do more good then harm. not every player is going to be super happy about doing commerce and some players love commerce and have tons of Ducats to spare. making it easier to exchange Ducats with other players could have a positive impact on the game but the end results for that really depend on the player economy.
- the simple fact is the Ducats shop is outdated. a lot has changed since commerce first came out, I see no harm in at least taking a serious look at the shop and making a few minor adjustments to possibly make it better.
other then the idea of a commerce bank and making Ducats easier to spread and exchange I don't think the other 3 ideas would severely break or harm the commerce system we have today. plus we have already experienced what it would be like having bandits appearing on a field at set time each time the Naco Commerce event has happened so a permanent system like that could out great. if there are players that want to stick to old traditional ways of earning Ducats they could simply avoid these encounters. even though red bandit badges sold for a decent price it never drastically effected the commerce system so I would see no harm in red bandits being permanent only spawning 3 to 4 times every real day. commerce should still require hard work, but at the same time it should be fun with some little but much needed improvements.
This should have been done a while back. Maybe we could make the boat journey into a pirate raid defence minigame or something similar to the boat ride in G23. But imagine how long it would take to go from Tara to Vales without mana tunnels. Or worse, to Fillia when there are no bridges currently built. Extra features for Iria runs could include random teleports in certain places in which you need to kill mobs to reach. This could make people commerce together.
I feel this might break the Commerce experience. Part of the fun is the progression. If an experienced commercer could directly give ducats to someone else via check they would give enough to get every mount and afford every good. Selling random items would break it too, just pick up all the equipment from the ground in shadow missions and sell them for Ducats would net you thousands of Ducats with no effort. If you mean non-random items, that's what badges are for.
Maybe what we need is not so much a commerce revamp (Iria would be awesome though) but instead a bandit hunting revamp. The bandit bosses are too weak for the modern player and reward little. If we could make party hunting missions to take down super-bosses?
Toppless's ideas seem awesome.
I agree going from Tara to Vales may be a little extreme but there could be reasonable Ducat rewards for just going from Tara to Qilla. sure Iria does not have a lot of towns but there are npc characters everywhere that could use supplies from having a commerce tent near by. from Qilla to the Explorers in the Muyu Desert, from Muyu Desert to the giant guards in the Karu Forest, from Karu to the Filia guards at the Oasis, and finally from the Oasis to Filia. there are many locations in Iria that could make it work. the bridges would probably only be a issue during the first week, once people start doing commerce in Iria that problem would probably go away very quickly. Iria and the commerce system both have a lot to offer but sadly since they are both old with very little new things happening to them they are empty and mostly abandoned. adding a commerce system to Iria helps both of them, Iria gets more traffic and commerce gets a nice change of scenery.
also we have already seen bandits in Iria from the Catch the Thief event we had. that kind of hinted mabi KR was thinking about the idea of bandits Iria and wanted to experiment with the possibility a little bit. sure we could increase Iria traffic a little bit by fixing some of the bugs and making rafting better and letting elves and giants get married. while they are still good ideas as well I don't see it boosting the player population in Iria long term which is why a commerce system there if done right would probably be a huge help. it would give players a reason to keep going back to Iria over and over and bring life into that near dead continent. if it does happen though Karis is probably going to need a bigger boat cause a horse wagon or a elephant commerce mount on his small ship might look ridiculous.
Distance is nothing for a merchant willing to gain profit. Plus, there can be more potential in such a distance to add things for a fun adventure. I think long distance travelling for trade is actually beneficial for people partying together. Enchance bandit ambushes, add side quests.
Diversifying trade routes could help prices recover on Uladh, but there needs to be a formula to create real consumption of trade goods to prices can be reflected naturally, so people don't spam that route the moment it resets creating the massive oversupply.
People stay away from commerce nowadays because someone or something is causing those 4 digit losses to show and that is unattractive.
Have them work differently if ya need too devs, or take it out of the game. Having the veterans gate people out of this game system makes no sense.
Sorry, just needed to vent about a system that quite frankly disgusts me.