IGN: Siodhan
Server: Alexina
Hello! Once again, one of my rather long suggestion threads. Bet something like this has been done before and just got shoved into the neverending abyss of unreviewed suggestions, but here comes another attempt at improving this game! Today, I bring you my ideas for the future of commerce, the long-abandoned feature that could've been so much more grand than it is.
Fix the bug where concealed bandits become invisible.
Fix displacement glitch by making commerce mount minimally teleport next to itself to refresh the position on screen after finishing a battle in commerce
Fix glitches that happen while talking to commerce goblins (such as the trade window never actually appearing until 10 minutes later...or being stuck forever after you're done trading. Y'know, the game-breaking things that could and should've been fixed many years ago)
Fix all Outlaws to have the same boss capture chance for their transformations.
Fix concealed bandits disappearing while you're approaching them during Bounty Hunting
Make it so that reconnecting after a crash (no time limit) will not result in magical loss of wares and thus money and time:
Instead add, for instance, a variable specific to each player (like there's most likely one for having been in combat the last 30 seconds) and if a player disconnects while this variable is set to true (being ambushed), it incurs the penalty. If the player is not being ambushed and disconnects - whatever. It's not doing any harm, most likely.
Implement item you can buy for 250k-1mil ducats that enables an option to be toggled on the trade goblin.:
Which option you ask? To gag the commerce imp to make him shut up already. That's right. I would PAY DUCATS for this!
(Optional:)Implement a couple more skins/alternate models for all commerce vehicles:
It's already a feature, so it's a good idea to expand on it to allow more visual diversity so make the activity less monotonous.
(Optional:) New commerce vehicle:
Land Dragon Wagon (1 mil ducats) - 150% speed, 2000 weight, 9 storage
[P] Land Dragon Wagon (Partner Version) - 150% speed, 2100 weight, 9 storage
Commerce Party (Caravan):
For each player in the party (up to 16) 3,125% more profit for non-scatach goods and any buffs used from the commerce mounts are twice as powerful. Spawn 6,25% more bandits, rounded down, per player in the party. Bonus only starts at two players to avoid abuse though. Party can set a bard tax of up to 30% to give x% of the profit (in ducats) of each person to every bard sitting on the second seat of any mount in the party, NPCs excluded. Most efficient parties will probably only bring a single bard anyway and ducats aren't shared throughout the account, so multi-acc-farming this way should be impossible.
If you're wondering why a 16 player caravan gives 50% more ducats and if that doesn't seem a little overpowered...well, I don't know about you, but wheneverI team up with anyone for commerce, we triggger at least 5x more bandits than solo. The percentage, of course, could be adjusted to be less or more, but it'd give more of an incentive to go in a group.
Second seat on the mount:
Allows for a bard to sit and play music while travelling (allows for switching scores as well, so you don't need to keep getting on and off). If the person is part of the commerce party, their buffs are doubled in effectiveness while they're on (commerce-mounted and while in the commerce party only). They can also keep sitting on the mount during combat to make this possible.
Occasionally, at a certain chance (let's say 15% at r1 commerce mastery) a fomor asks for transportation. They'll occupy the spot a bard could normally sit on, but arriving at the destination will yield additional ducats. They do not yield any buffs.
EIther way, the reason for suggesting this part is because commerce is always more fun with more people and you can't really provide someone music while you're traveling right now, which would make it way more pleasant of a ride.
Market booms and collapses of certain items in certain towns:
Once in a while there will be several items (or types of items) that become popular or unpopular in towns for a while. They will receive a bonus/malus sell price respectively. Might last for around 12 ingame hours or so, as to make it neither too annoying, nor too beneficial. So far a feature like this does not exist.
Let me show you a few examples.
"Crystals have become the latest fad in Tir Chonaill!" (+10-20% profit for all crystals)
"The price of metal items in Bangor has dropped!" (-15% to -25% to all metal item profits)
"Someone spread rumors that Lovely Potions are a hoax in Emain Macha" (-15% to -25% profits only for lovely potion)
"A fight broke out with Fomors in Taillteann, weapon and armor prices have shot up" (+10-20% profit for all weapons and armors)
etcetc. You get the idea. It brings more of a dynamic feeling to commerce and adds more depth.
New Mercantile skills:
Bartering:
r1: Allows for 15% higher profits on non-scatach goods (to make normal commercing more useful again) for the next run. Minigame triggers each time you sell wares.
Minigame for Bartering: You need to convince the buyer, for one reason or another, that the wares provided are worth more than market price. The screen will show a pentagon divided into equally large triangles. Each of the triangles will correspond to an option and will have a small picture/icon on it.
- Bandits+ ("It's been rough to get it here in one piece with all the bandits around!")
- Popularity+("The item is popular everywhere right now!") ALWAYS WORKS WHEN IN BOOM
- Quality+("This item is of extaordinary quality!")
- Rarity+("This is a rare item! Now is your chance!") (it doesn't actually have to be rare)
- Distance+("This is from very far away. You normally wouldn't be able to get your hands on this!") ALWAYS WORKS BETWEEN ULADH AND IRIA(Quila and Cobh excluded)
The game will randomly determine which two of these will work. The standard chance of guessing right will be 40%. If, however, the item has been transported from uladh to iria or vice versa AND is in boom AND two OTHER options than those two were randomly chosen, the chance goes up to a max of 80%.
The point is to click a single field and hope that it is the right one that will make the deal just a bit sweeter.
Crappy example picture:
Swindle:
r1: The next load of items you buy will have their price cut by 15%. Opens the minigame screen after you press to buy wares, but only if you have swindle activated. To activate swindle, you toggle it in your skill menu like chain cylinder.
Minigame for Swindle: Another pentagon. This time, there are three possible outcomes. First outcome, you convince the trader and get more money. Second outcome, nothing happens. Third outcome, the trader calls your lies. You buy the wares at the normal price, but your reputation in that town lowers by a certain amount (not as much as when you smuggle). This is the reason why the skill will be toggle-able, because some people may not want for this to happen and avoid the risk altogether, which they thus can.
- Time+("It'll take very long to transport these goods. Nobody will do it unless you lower the prices!") (Since the game doesn't know where you'll take these, no guaranteed bonus!)
- Popularity-("This item is unpopular. I'll take it off your hands if you lower the price, good luck getting rid of it otherwise.") ALWAYS WORKS WHEN COLLAPSED
- Hoax ("This item isn't actually as good as you say / doesn't work. But I can sell it for you regardless if you give me a good cut.") (This option has nothing to do with my example of a certain item's market collapsing because of a lie, this is just a minigame with a single person, not a lie to an entire town)
- Danger+("There are too many chances for us to lose the goods while we're transporting them. Could you make it a bit cheaper?")
- Charity ("The city I'm going to desperately needs these to survive. Please be charitable!") 50% CHANCE TO ALWAYS WORK ON FOOD ITEMS UNLESS CHOSEN AS CORRECT OPTION
So, for this one the chance is similar. 2/5 of the options are randomly chosen to work. If those chosen ones are NOT Popularity- and Charity, there will be an additional chance of 20% for popularity and a technical 10% (essentially 50%) for charity (since even if it's a food item you're buying, it's only 50% guaranteed to work). If the first outcome (getting extra profit) is not happening, then it's either outcome 2 or 3. Between those two, the odds will be 85% (outcome 2) to 15% (outcome 3).
Crappy graphic example:
Iria Commerce:
I've already mentioned Iria a few times, so I'm sure you've already caught on to me wanting to suggest commerce in Iria. We don't have that right now. The distances are huge, so naturally, profit would need to be scaled to that (I'm not saying all of the wares should cost insanely much. That would only make iria commerce less viable. I'm saying to make the profit per item high.)
Trade posts in Iria:
- Qilla Camp (FIltered Water, Exploration Equipment, Musical Instruments, Coconut-Juice, Gemstones*)
- Vales (Zinc Ore, Log, Hillwen, Mining Equipment, New Gun Prototype*)
- Cor Village (Bronze Jackal Statue, Hobgoblin Ornament, Fried Spider, Charm, Ivory*)
- Calida Camp (Potted Flowers, Roasted Boar Meat, Wyvern Claw, Boiled Crab, Sulfur Ore*)
- Filia (Memory Potion, Fox Filet, Coffin, Magical Accessory, Magic-crafted Staff*)
Smuggling Overhaul:
Adds a new type of smuggler who cycles between 3-4 possible locations within each area with a trade post. The smuggler we have right now not only buys wares off your hands, but deals illegal wares to you that the afforementioned smugglers in each town will buy off your hands. The commerce rating of the town whose smuggler you end up selling the wares to will decrease for each trade, but the smuggler rating will go up (there is no way for it to go down, though, they're just happy you trade them stuff occasionally).
Smuggler wares: Illegal Herbs, Outlawed Potions, Banned Materials, Forbidden Symbols, Fugitive Person*
Imp Ducat Shop:
Add the items from KR that we're missing.
Bounty Hunting:
The outlaws should all appear on the board regardless of how many ducats they've currently stolen and always provide ample amounts of ducats when caught. If you enter an outlaw homestead where the outlaw themselves isn't present, make the "Bounty Hunting"-mode continue after you enter and exit the homestead, so that you can keep hunting without going back to town every single time.
Traveling by boat:
Occasionally, pirates can spawn to attack you. You're no longer safe on the boat for some reason when there are actually many pirates in existence that have plagued Uladh and Belvast in the past. As to what the pirates do, check the next and last paragraph. Should you allow them to spawn by toggling an option at the trade goblin, you'll be given an additive 20% speed boost for the entire rest of your current trade run should you have taken the boat in the process. If you toggled the option but only traveled on land, you do not recieve this bonus. The bonus will end when you hand in your wares at any trade post.
More Bandit Variations:
Currently, we have only a handful of variations. Now, asking for an AI overhaul just for commerce would be a bit much. But that doesn't mean we can't change it up at all. Naturally, all the following bandits CAN STEAL.
- Bandit Leprechaun: Very low hp, doesn't attack. Spends 15s activating their skill, "Final Theft". Once it activates, it teleports to the commerce mount and rapidly steals with each attack until it hits the limit of what a bandit can carry and disappears.
- Bandit Elf Trapper: (same hp as goblin archers) Explosive Kunai, Kunai Storm, Shadow Bind
- Bandit Human Alchemist: Flame Burst, Wind Blast, Frozen Blast (be careful not to give them too high damage, the balance has been out of whack since the alchemy revamp)
- Bandit Skeleton Bard: Battlefield Overture, Dischord
- Bandit Kobold Gunner: Reload, Shooting Rush, Grapple Shot, Flash Launcher (careful with the damage and cooldowns)
- Bandit Troll: Smash, uses their notorious blunt club
- Bandit Lancer Boss: Same hp as human boss (but it's a giant), Smash, Lance Counter, Lance Charge
- Bandit Succubus Boss: Lowest hp boss, can cast lightning bolt, thunder and fireball (careful with the damage here too)
- Bandit Archer Boss: Same hp as human boss (but it's an elf), Arrow Revolver
- Bandit Brawler Boss: High hp giant with charging strke, spinning uppercut and dropkick.
As for pirates, just take the same stats and skills and replace "Bandit" with "Pirate", replace their outfits with boatswain and admiral sets respectively and maybe replace some models to more sea-oriented ones, like trolls to sea trolls for instance. You're notoriously good at copy pasta, so you'll be fine in this regard.
EDIT: Can't believe I forgot my name and server, even though I knew. Well, it's fixed now.
Comments
I find your idea to be one of the greatest overhauls I've seen in a long while. Though, I would see an issue with Iria commercing and Raids; maybe a message could appear to commercing players that getting too close to the raid will cancel their trading. As for group commerce, I think the bonus profit seems reasonable, though I think that the "more bandits per player" aspect could be improved, since a 6-bandit spawn against a 16-member trading caravan will only add 3 more bandits.
As for the "piracy" aspect, I think we should have the option between pirates or no pirates. We could have, say, Carasek offering a ride on his well-equiped ship (meaning no pirates), but for a cost in Ducats. Kallorek could also offer a ride (for free) in his boat (which would need to be enlarged), though pirates could attack. Another way this could go down is if both rides are free, yet Carasek's boat attracts pirates and Kallorek's boat takes twice the usual travel time.
Bounty Hunting
I also feel that bounty hunting should get a revamp. First, I believe more outlaws should appear on the board. Also, let the player remain in pursuit if they entered a homestead with no outlaw.
Moreover (and this remains a suggestion), I'd like to see a PvP mode for commerce, where players can raid caravans (commerce parties of 3 or more) as an added danger to huge caravans. As a result, such criminal players would be added to the Wanted board and become new targets for bounty hunters. Of course, I think certain rules should be set, such as not allowing reforged equipment or using certain broken skills, or allowing you to raid the same players only once per set amount of time (say one Erinn day). Also, criminal players could only attack players within their cumulative level range (1-100 // 101-300 // 301-1,000 // 1,001-3,000 // 3,001-6,000 // 6,001 and up).
Finally, maybe criminal players could include those who deal with the smuggler, though the advantages for using the smuggler should increase. However, the whole PvP idea means that bounties should never be exceedingly high, so as not to make bounty hunting far more profitable than commerce, instead just being "quick cash."
I'll add bounty hunting to the lst. I did think of revamping it along, since it's sort of part of commerce, but I couldn't think of any good changes to it, since it's almost bug-free compared to normal commerce. I'll think about it more, I think I just remembered a bug where concealed bandits are visible, but disappear when you approach them, while bounty hunting, so I'll also add things like that.
Since mabi PvP is very iffy and we never know what skill's going to get revamped when and become potentially hazardous for this kind of gameplay, plus not everyone likes to PvP, it might be good to post this one as a seperate suggestion. Perhaps as an additional mode, PvP-Commerce or something, that you can toggle at the trade NPCs, with seperate up and downsides. I rarely ever PvP, so I can't even begin to compile a good list of skills to ban, but I'm sure it'd be the majority of them. Plus there's the stuff with percentages as well, balancing between higher and lower level players, etc. It'll be very complex and I can't match that complexity with my knowledge. Go for it, though!
As for the pirates, I suppose allowing the player to toggle them on or off would sort of break the danger aspect to it so perhaps there'd need to be another incentive to keep them turned on, perhaps a flat 20% speed boost added to your mount for the next trip. It'll allow you to quickly travel from whatever port you arrive at to perhaps the most distant of places like Filia more quickly.
Increasing the amount of bandit spawns further makes sense. It was double, initially, because solo sometimes you get like 10 or so spawns and it really jumps up to a high number that way, but for a lot of players in one party that should pose no threat. I also initially thought of making the ducat bonus follow the equation of (1,277^players)% to make it scale much slower on small parties and much higher on full parties. The idea itself, to me, sounds very great - but the downside is that even at 8 players we're only looking at a 7% bonus. A simple x^players formula won't be precise enough for a dynamic bonus. A more complex polynomial is probably needed and I don't have enough free time to figure that one out. The reason for this thinking was that maybe a 15% or so bonus for a small party would already satisfy most people and we'd never see big caravans despite the huge benefits of it..but we wouldn't know unless it was tested in live action.
As for making players faster instead of giving them more profit...the idea does sound tempting, but with all the ways we have to speed up commerce already it would, in my opinion, further break the gap between people with no commerce gear and with people that have some. I know because unless I go alone with my gear, commercing is terribly inefficient. So I was kind of hoping that the huge additional yield of ducats would balance out the need to always go at full speed, especially if you're tempted to listen to a bard playing music while you're traveling. If I haven't convinced you though, maybe a speed boost could be in order. I'm not sure, honestly.
Of course, we always have to be careful with what we add for balancing. Commerce also rewards gold and exp and the markets on some servers are already pretty bad.
I was thinking you meant pay to remove him and then he's gone for good. Toggling does work beautifully in case somebody does (for whatever reason) like him enough.
The main reason I'm on the fence about commerce in Iria is because it's so open and when you're traveling to trade goods, you're not going to want to explore for fear of bandits or other threats, preventing the two from working well together (unless you use demigod and passively explore). Having small trade posts scattered around Iria would break it up a bit and maybe even encourage some more visitors, but I think revamping Exploration would be better.
I started with y=ax²+bx+c
Three points I wanted to have fixed on this curve, just as a test, were:
y(profit%)=7, x(players)=4
y = 20, x = 8
y = 50, x = 16
After solving the equation system, I came across the solution: a=1/24, b=22/8, c=-14/3
The resulting curve looked like this:
To be honest, it would probably require a lot more points for more satisfactory calculation results, because this one is still looking too linear. The values were as follows:
(x= player amount)
(Δy= difference between linear and non-linear percentage)
I also noticed a potential issue of people abusing the profit bonus by being in a party without actually going in a group. It would need to have some sort of proximity condition. Even then, you could abuse it by having everyone stand near the commerce post you are going to cash in on without actually commercing, so there'd need to be some kind countermeasure against all the funsuckers that will no doubt abuse such things to make it less fun for everyone else doing it the legit way. I can't think of a spotless solution though. Thoughts? On the non-linear growth as well, if the idea is appreciated.
I'm sure there are some players that will still do this, such as when they're afk for an extended period of time and just leave a shop open in Dunbarton or Belvast. But most players would want to take advantage of the bonus (or so I'd hope).
Pegasus/Unicorn seems better, if you ask me.
I don't know how to respond to this...
In terms of reasoning to add something else, we already have a horse-based commerce mount with the wagon. The annoying commerce helper imp that travels with you mentions obtaining a pack dragon (that doesn't exist yet).
On a personal note, dragons are awesome (sometimes).
EDIT: Here's another, much better try at making this exponential.
I wonder what they have planned. Hopefully we can get the equivalent of Runescape's Grand Exchange that I heard about with it. Can someone can confirm that something like that is in KR?
Some of my own ideas include
1. Add Iria to the trade routes. this would give LONG travel paths and more options for those looking for profit. instead of the heavily flooded ones we have now.
-the length of distance to travel for some of these would mean bandits encountered would be very strong at times. and encourage traveling in a convoy.
2. Add Scenarios like toll gates. aka on heavily traveled paths, bandits set up a barricade(effective on routes like dunbarton to emain). you can either pay the toll, or fight. but the bandits will be strong enough it might be best to wait for a few more merchants. or you could look for a route around.
3. Hunters. the longer your trade route, the more likely this event spawns. where its a bandit thats slowly creeping up on you. you can stop and engage. or keep going and try to get to a safe spot like a city. after which it will despawn if your there for long enough. if you don't and he reaches you. a strong band of bandits spawns on you.
4. more items to get from merchants. both for trade or to buy.
got any more ideas? or issues with ones i listed. post away
http://forums.mabinogi.nexon.net/discussion/4441/massive-commerce-overhaul
ty =D