Coffee Nerfs

[Reikenbach]

In a relatively small time frame, coffee has:

• Been removed from vendors in the Underdark
  Been removed from fishing crates
  Stopped appearing in 100-count stacks via containers
  More than tripled its price in Port Azoun to 87gp
  Stopped being consistently available in Port Azoun
  Stopped being available to UD/Pirate characters in Port Azoun

In a vacuum, one or two of these changes was perfectly fine to make it more of a commodity. Altogether, though, they make crafted coffee incredibly cost-inefficient compared to vendor coffee, while also making it very awkward to acquire for UD characters.

Was coffee actually so strong it needed all these changes?

[TheDoctor]

Altogether, though, they make crafted coffee incredibly cost-inefficient compared to vendor coffee, while also making it very awkward to acquire for UD characters.

Was coffee actually so strong it needed all these changes?

As far as I know crafted is much stronger than store bought... You can see this yourself just buy from an NPC, then use it, look at what changes... Then use a crafted one and look at what changes.

Not the same cup of java at all.

[Reikenbach]

As far as I know crafted is much stronger than store bought... You can see this yourself just buy from an NPC, then use it, look at what changes... Then use a crafted one and look at what changes.

Not the same cup of java at all.

Crafted coffee is (I believe) about three times as much Rest as storebought. However, it's significantly more expensive and time-consuming to make crafted coffee than to just drink three or four times as much storebought.

[Sincra]

This is actually closer to the original intent of when Coffee was added.
It is not meant to have easily accessible parallels to the UD or Monsters because it's specifically meant to be a Surface item that then gets smuggled.
This has actually been done before and was pretty awesome to see done well by smuggler merchants.

The fact it was added as a craftable is actually outside the original plan, and as such has been reigned in.
This is my understanding.

[Reikenbach]

This is actually closer to the original intent of when Coffee was added.
It is not meant to have easily accessible parallels to the UD or Monsters because it's specifically meant to be a Surface item that then gets smuggled.
This has actually been done before and was pretty awesome to see done well by smuggler merchants.

The fact it was added as a craftable is actually outside the original plan, and as such has been reigned in.
This is my understanding.

Even ignoring that the disadvantage of the UD/Pirates in getting crafted coffee, these changes also significantly nerfed crafted coffee for surfacers, too. UD/Pirates have a harder time getting it, now, but the increase in cost and the inconvenience of rotating vendors affects everybody.

Smuggling beans makes as much sense as smuggling the finished product, after all.

[Sincra]

Again, the fact it was added as a craftable was outside the original intent.

[Spyre]

The 100 stack drop was a bug. Please don’t call it a nerf. Whoever added it made an error that was eventually cleaned up by people who could fix it.

[Reikenbach]

Again, the fact it was added as a craftable was outside the original intent.

The 100 stack drop was a bug. Please don’t call it a nerf. Whoever added it made an error that was eventually cleaned up by people who could fix it.

So coffee beans were never supposed to be added in the first place? Explains the changes to make them less relevant, I guess.

Alright, sorry I brought this up. I'll just try to make crafted coffee work with the new challenges.

[Paint]

Realistically, the issue boils down to the availability of coffee beans being pretty terrible right now when we were swimming in them, and paring them back so much is pretty disappointing.

On the subject of coffee smuggling and rarity, when you can buy 100 stacks of cheap coffee from the other settlements, the argument that coffee beans are rare now b/c they're supposed to be difficult to obtain for underdarkers loses a lot of its impact.

Coffee is not difficult to obtain.

The better coffee that people are more interested in using as a roleplay prop or performing business with is. It was already more difficult to obtain anyways, but now it's so decimated there's hardly a reason to invest in it.

So I'm potentially shooting myself in the foot here, but I think that the explanations given by Sincra aren't really enough.

It's possible this is a pandora's box situation, since none of these complaints would've come up at all if coffee as a craftable was never introduced, but I think now that it is, making so difficult to craft and claiming it helps create RP and maintain setting consistency when there's a literally infinite supply of cheap coffee across the island is a bit of a headscratcher for me.

[perseid]

Realistically, the issue boils down to the availability of coffee beans being pretty terrible right now when we were swimming in them, and paring them back so much is pretty disappointing.

On the subject of coffee smuggling and rarity, when you can buy 100 stacks of cheap coffee from the other settlements, the argument that coffee beans are rare now b/c they're supposed to be difficult to obtain for underdarkers loses a lot of its impact.

Coffee is not difficult to obtain.

The better coffee that people are more interested in using as a roleplay prop or performing business with is. It was already more difficult to obtain anyways, but now it's so decimated there's hardly a reason to invest in it.

So I'm potentially shooting myself in the foot here, but I think that the explanations given by Sincra aren't really enough.

It's possible this is a pandora's box situation, since none of these complaints would've come up at all if coffee as a craftable was never introduced, but I think now that it is, making so difficult to craft and claiming it helps create RP and maintain setting consistency when there's a literally infinite supply of cheap coffee across the island is a bit of a headscratcher for me.

I think to a degree this is true but I don't think it conveys the full picture really. Calling it just "the better coffee" overlooks that only crafted coffee can be stored in culinary containers. It's not like the only disadvantage of smuggled npc coffee is that rest% values are worse. Crafted coffee is objectively more useful mechanically because it's easier to carry en masse on a server where inventory management is a huge issue that many characters constantly struggle with. It would be different if non-crafted coffee had the same storage versatility as crafted coffee but it doesn't and that's a massive pain point when settling for the "second best" coffee.

[Cthuletta]

I'm gonna have to agree that all the changes pushed through quickly made for a bit of a startling update. I likely don't have ALL the information, as I didn't see a post anywhere about these changes, but from what I gathered thus far...
Some of them make total sense, like removing the crates that gave a full hundred because that was overkill, but others such as rotating merchants who don't sell to certain kinds of characters has made it really difficult for Underdarkers, who don't have access already to the NPC Coffee. This does create good smuggling roleplay, totally agree there, but the craftable coffee was already difficult to come by or expensive for what it produces anyway. This also extends to the other cooking ingredients on offer, but you can also fish for those which is a good method to get them.

The craftable coffee, in my opinion, is leagues better for not just the mechanical benefit or the space issue, but also because they're customizable. Names, bios, where you can put your own flavour (literally) on the item. While as before it was a bit difficult to get to the merchants because you had to sail out and be wary of boarders if you weren't a good sailor or alternatively find a crew to escort you, buy the beans, sail back, craft them...
Now you have to sail out the same way, hope the merchants are on the rotation you want (if they even talk to you at all), spend MORE gold to buy the same thing, so on. This impacts every character, surfacers, pirates, and UDers.
The alternative for Underdarkers if a very specific and district-locked merchant that charges a LOT for the same item, so much so that it doesn't really justify the cost for what you're getting out of it.

My personal suggestion to keep the cooking ingredients more difficult for certain characters to access, but not wildly so, is to scale back at least one of these changes.

1) If we could fish up the crates again for a random RNG number of beans. These are clearly being smuggled, and with the activity of pirate and UD ships, I don't see why kaethe bean cargo wouldn't also be lost and has the probability of being pulled up by anyone.

2) If the rotations were reverted back and each merchant sells a certain kind of item all the time- enabling smuggling or working with other players to buy them if you yourself can't purchase from them. Otherwise, this is now left up to chance and if your source for those magical beans everybody wants in some form goes on the wrong day, you're SOL since it's RNG.

3) If the type of characters able to buy from them was removed. This change seems to be the most annoying to work around, but it IS understandable from an IC perspective as to why they wouldn't sell to certain characters, however, I have an alternative idea for that.
3.5) Allow characters to be able to disguise and have to pass a check to break that disguise, for the merchants to assume they are just like any other Surfacer, and sell to them.

4) If the aforementioned NPC Merchant that sells them at the extreme costs, had their costs reduced. Not to the same standard as Azoun, of course, given it's slightly more convenient if you know how to access them. But reduced enough to justify what you're actually getting out of it. This could lead to people trading them for a slightly higher cost on their own side (because profit) and put them back in rotation.

If just one of those things were changed, it'd keep the aspect of kaethe being rarer and harder to come by, but still DOABLE, which is what I think a lot folks on Sencliff/UD are finding difficult right now.

[Paint]

I think to a degree this is true but I don't think it conveys the full picture really. Calling it just "the better coffee" overlooks that only crafted coffee can be stored in culinary containers. It's not like the only disadvantage of smuggled npc coffee is that rest% values are worse. Crafted coffee is objectively more useful mechanically because it's easier to carry en masse on a server where inventory management is a huge issue that many characters constantly struggle with. It would be different if non-crafted coffee had the same storage versatility as crafted coffee but it doesn't and that's a massive pain point when settling for the "second best" coffee.

I get what you're saying, but as someone who has played multiple casters casters on Arelith for a very long time, and who hasn't felt the need to rely on crafted coffee, in spite of having inventories dense with old plot items and other nonsense, the point you're trying to make is very exaggerated. I have never struggled to fit a stack or two of 1x2 cheap coffees in my inventory.

[Twohand]

4) If the aforementioned NPC Merchant that sells them at the extreme costs, had their costs reduced. Not to the same standard as Azoun, of course, given it's slightly more convenient if you know how to access them. But reduced enough to justify what you're actually getting out of it. This could lead to people trading them for a slightly higher cost on their own side (because profit) and put them back in rotation.

Initially, the Port Azoun merchants sold kaeth beans and other materials for way too cheap, and I think my fix for that was too heavy-handed. I have decided to lower the prices to more reasonable values (the prices are fixed but they fluctuate a bit between each merchant NPC). Expect the update live some time soon.

[perseid]

I think to a degree this is true but I don't think it conveys the full picture really. Calling it just "the better coffee" overlooks that only crafted coffee can be stored in culinary containers. It's not like the only disadvantage of smuggled npc coffee is that rest% values are worse. Crafted coffee is objectively more useful mechanically because it's easier to carry en masse on a server where inventory management is a huge issue that many characters constantly struggle with. It would be different if non-crafted coffee had the same storage versatility as crafted coffee but it doesn't and that's a massive pain point when settling for the "second best" coffee.

I get what you're saying, but as someone who has played multiple casters casters on Arelith for a very long time, and who hasn't felt the need to rely on crafted coffee, in spite of having inventories dense with old plot items and other nonsense, the point you're trying to make is very exaggerated. I have never struggled to fit a stack or two of 1x2 cheap coffees in my inventory.

Respectfully it sounds to me like your multiple casters inventories weren't actually all that dense. Between alternate item sets, containers, pvp disposables, situational swap items, stacks of unweighted valuable materials, etc. I find that even maintaining one blank page is a challenge. I'm glad that you're able to keep your inventories so thin but for characters who are interested in optimizing the value they get out of the stuff their character carries I don't think it's accurate at all to say the issue is exaggerated.

[Cthuletta]

4) If the aforementioned NPC Merchant that sells them at the extreme costs, had their costs reduced. Not to the same standard as Azoun, of course, given it's slightly more convenient if you know how to access them. But reduced enough to justify what you're actually getting out of it. This could lead to people trading them for a slightly higher cost on their own side (because profit) and put them back in rotation.

Initially, the Port Azoun merchants sold kaeth beans and other materials for way too cheap, and I think my fix for that was too heavy-handed. I have decided to lower the prices to more reasonable values (the prices are fixed but they fluctuate a bit between each merchant NPC). Expect the update live some time soon.

Appreciate you taking the feedback, looking forward to that change! Though in this instance I meant the NPC Merchant that is located in the Underdark, would that one be included?