Arelith

I like the changes. The BLSH (buy-low-sell-high) method gave less incentive to roleplay and build networks in the economic community.

Septire wrote:But the fullest effect won't really be seen until crafting gets a revamp to make crafting more economical, or until adventuring yields lots of items that can be appraised to merchants.

Can we expect hotfixes to some of the present-day crafting recipes such as healing poultices and portal lenses? It would be both a compromise and a long-awaited change to outdated recipe costs.

Thank you for providing roleplay-intuitive options to merchants and appraise/search players. (:

I do not think the change is bad in and of itself, but pulling the rug out from everyone who took the rules at face value when they made their characters means you have a system designed to make a chunk of the player base "suffer" and have "wasted" skill points making their characters flawed/less optimal.

It is ironic that the players who have made your lives easier by providing cheap bandages and portal lenses at little profit to themselves are being mocked. Temp essences were indeed big money and now they like many other things will be more expensive. Still these players were helping the community and are now shafted. I can think of things I would rather have invested those 20+ skill points in. When you wave a wand and say "nice players get shafted" you are naturally going to meet more resistance than if you took those players into consideration and allowed them to adapt their builds.

That is my only concern with the change.

That is basically it. Had this been implemented before you would hear no negative comments from my side. I don't think it is ok for players to run about at a dead sprint to buy then lugging things to sell back to an npc merchant just so they can get a new shiny toy they found or make themselves more optimal as early as possible. Nor do I think there is a single point to stock piling all that coin in the bank. What purpose is that? Just to say you can?

My issue is that with this new change, if it had been this way before, I would not have made the choices I made and I would have crafting skills to better serve the Gift of Crafting I took, and make stocking that shop just a bit easier.

I am not criticizing anyones hard work, it is always greatly appreciated. I'm just wishing I had not gotten shafted in the process. Letting those skill points be redistributed would be a balm to a very sore place right now. I get the current benefits. I am not saying they don't exist. I am just saying that for me, for what I was attempting to create, they do nothing for me and other options would absolutely without a doubt been my choice.

Lost Valkyrie wrote: It is ironic that the players who have made your lives easier by providing cheap bandages and portal lenses at little profit to themselves are being mocked. Temp essences were indeed big money and now they like many other things will be more expensive. Still these players were helping the community and are now shafted.

I think it's absurd to act as if these appraise characters were providing some sort of great service to the community at huge personal cost, as opposed to just making easy, passive, free money by stocking their shop with items bought from NPCs ten feet away. You're not a martyr or Mother Teresa, you were in it to make a profit, and as such don't deserve "the community's respect" for your selfless OOC sacrifice, or any kind of special consideration because you were so "nice."

Yes, temporary essences among other things are now more expensive. Many people will want to buy 1d4s instead of 1d6s if they're short on money. C'est la vie. That has nothing to do with the situation appraise characters now find themselves in.

Trunx wrote:

Lost Valkyrie wrote: It is ironic that the players who have made your lives easier by providing cheap bandages and portal lenses at little profit to themselves are being mocked. Temp essences were indeed big money and now they like many other things will be more expensive. Still these players were helping the community and are now shafted.

I think it's absurd to act as if these appraise characters were providing some sort of great service to the community at huge personal cost, as opposed to just making easy, passive, free money by stocking their shop with items bought from NPCs ten feet away. You're not a martyr or Mother Teresa, you were in it to make a profit, and as such don't deserve "the community's respect" for your selfless OOC sacrifice, or any kind of special consideration because you were so "nice."

Yes, temporary essences among other things are now more expensive. Many people will want to buy 1d4s instead of 1d6s if they're short on money. C'est la vie. That has nothing to do with the situation appraise characters now find themselves in.

Brought down essences and lenses exactly for that purpose, sometimes undercut, sold for no profit, or a profit so low adventuring would have yielded more. It was an ungratifying, terribly boring job. I'm actually glad it has been removed.

Argument wouldn't hold as universally as it is being presented here either way.

A Mystery Clock wrote:

Trunx wrote:

Lost Valkyrie wrote: It is ironic that the players who have made your lives easier by providing cheap bandages and portal lenses at little profit to themselves are being mocked. Temp essences were indeed big money and now they like many other things will be more expensive. Still these players were helping the community and are now shafted.

I think it's absurd to act as if these appraise characters were providing some sort of great service to the community at huge personal cost, as opposed to just making easy, passive, free money by stocking their shop with items bought from NPCs ten feet away. You're not a martyr or Mother Teresa, you were in it to make a profit, and as such don't deserve "the community's respect" for your selfless OOC sacrifice, or any kind of special consideration because you were so "nice."

Yes, temporary essences among other things are now more expensive. Many people will want to buy 1d4s instead of 1d6s if they're short on money. C'est la vie. That has nothing to do with the situation appraise characters now find themselves in.

Brought down essences and lenses exactly for that purpose, sometimes undercut, sold for no profit, or a profit so low adventuring would have yielded more. It was an ungratifying, terribly boring job. I'm actually glad it has been removed.

Argument wouldn't hold as universally as it is being presented here either way.

If you sold for no profit, then it doesn't nerf you that appraise was changed and you can no longer do that to make a profit. Since you weren't making one. So your situation is different from Lost Valkyrie's and others who complain that they wasted skillpoints because they can't do that anymore.

Bad things happen to good adventurers?

Arelith has made changes through the years that a vocal majority have been against, but in the end this change doesn't actually do as much damage as you might think, while plugging a serious loophole that gave certain individuals an unfair advantage.

A Mystery Clock wrote:sometimes

Means, indeed, sometimes. I am arguing that even when it was done as a form of service for, say, underdarkers, wouldn't justify the argument "all players who did it are unhappy/feel punished by the change", Trunx. It has also been done as a source of profit somewhere down the line, and the point is that no matter how you flip it (personal, passive profit - selflessly providing a service) not all players are disgruntled by this change. I play a long-standing Andunorian merchant who made a reputation out of selfless (???) sale of imported wares, made some money out of it, invested in appraise so early it can't be delevel-rebuilt and I -still- do not feel punished by this update. Like ORK said, and I stressed earlier on in the same topic, it plugged such a huge issue it will benefit the same people who now complain by lowering the inflation for everyone else. Even if it meant taking one for the team, let me assure, it's really a tiny hit. It doesn't cripple concepts. It doesn't rob honest folks of their jobs. Markets change! Sell something else.

Appraise runs needed to go. That's all there is to it. Recent dev posts have promised work on crafting, loot and the player economy, so it's best to take a breath, wait, and see what the changes have in store before deciding that Appraise was a wasted investment.

Trunx wrote:

Lost Valkyrie wrote: It is ironic that the players who have made your lives easier by providing cheap bandages and portal lenses at little profit to themselves are being mocked. Temp essences were indeed big money and now they like many other things will be more expensive. Still these players were helping the community and are now shafted.

I think it's absurd to act as if these appraise characters were providing some sort of great service to the community at huge personal cost, as opposed to just making easy, passive, free money by stocking their shop with items bought from NPCs ten feet away. You're not a martyr or Mother Teresa, you were in it to make a profit, and as such don't deserve "the community's respect" for your selfless OOC sacrifice, or any kind of special consideration because you were so "nice."

Yes, temporary essences among other things are now more expensive. Many people will want to buy 1d4s instead of 1d6s if they're short on money. C'est la vie. That has nothing to do with the situation appraise characters now find themselves in.

It's more absurd to assume everyone used appraise for essence runs. I know some that used appraise to provide cheap kits and lenses at a loss or at cost. You may not consider this a great service but many will. Likely you have summed the whole issue up into temp essences runs and not looked at the bigger picture.

Your tone leaves a bit to be desired on what is supposed to be a friendly discussion.

So your situation is different from Lost Valkyrie's and others who complain that they wasted skillpoints because they can't do that anymore



Not my complaint at all. My complaint is my character was built on a set of rules that have since changed and I would like the option to adapt my character accordingly. Your posts are full of assumption. This does not affect my character's merchant career at all since I did not have room in my shop for appraise based items. My concern is what I stated it is.

Lost Valkyrie wrote:

Trunx wrote:

Lost Valkyrie wrote: It is ironic that the players who have made your lives easier by providing cheap bandages and portal lenses at little profit to themselves are being mocked. Temp essences were indeed big money and now they like many other things will be more expensive. Still these players were helping the community and are now shafted.

I think it's absurd to act as if these appraise characters were providing some sort of great service to the community at huge personal cost, as opposed to just making easy, passive, free money by stocking their shop with items bought from NPCs ten feet away. You're not a martyr or Mother Teresa, you were in it to make a profit, and as such don't deserve "the community's respect" for your selfless OOC sacrifice, or any kind of special consideration because you were so "nice."

Yes, temporary essences among other things are now more expensive. Many people will want to buy 1d4s instead of 1d6s if they're short on money. C'est la vie. That has nothing to do with the situation appraise characters now find themselves in.

It's more absurd to assume everyone used appraise for essence runs. I know some that used appraise to provide cheap kits and lenses at a loss or at cost. You may not consider this a great service but many will. Likely you have summed the whole issue up into temp essences runs and not looked at the bigger picture.

Your tone leaves a bit to be desired on what is supposed to be a friendly discussion.

You can still provide cheap kits and lenses at a loss, you don't need appraise for that. If you're truly in it just to Help The Community, nothing's stopping you from still stocking your shop with cheaper lenses and essences.

duplicated post

Just made 6k from bandit hideout in Cordor after 1 hour of play.

Trunx wrote: I think it's absurd to act as if these appraise characters were providing some sort of great service to the community at huge personal cost, as opposed to just making easy, passive, free money by stocking their shop with items bought from NPCs ten feet away. You're not a martyr or Mother Teresa, you were in it to make a profit, and as such don't deserve "the community's respect" for your selfless OOC sacrifice, or any kind of special consideration because you were so "nice."

Trunx, you are making some VAST assumptions. Yes, players were shafted. Their builds (which were not against the rules) were actually less optimal. Why don't we go ahead and remove AC bonus from tumble? People skill dump far into their builds on a 3 level splash. ("I couldn't tumble yesterday. I became a master in just 5 minutes!") But you get to keep the ability to tumble away from attacks of opportunity. That prevents you from having to get a feat (or 3) and wear medium armor or less. That's a fair compromise, right?

Simply saying that they weren't genuinely trying to help the community because they weren't doing it for free is ignorance. The entire dwarven community was breathed to life by a merchant faction doing merchanty things (including selling items at a discount, and making a small profit so they could afford to RP more without constantly circle grinding like mindless zombies). But no. They only did it for the profit. The rest of their work (which was paid for by merchanting) had NOTHING to do with helping players or creating RP. How could it!? The community (much the way some believe dwarves are born) just sprung up from the ground!

If you don't like the change, tough luck. Delevel to the point where you decided to take these things, and start over. Your character goes from being a master of their craft to a total novice, just to compensate for a change to "create more RP". Without even opening the door to help characters explain why something they could do yesterday can't be done today. "Why don't you stock essences anymore?" "Because we...umm..yeah! You get it, right!?" "How about portal lenses?" "That's umm...you see. When a momma portal and a daddy portal love eachother very much...The portals here are going celibate." "Riiiight."

A change to deliberately negatively impact a mechanic to keep them from doing something that isn't against the rules can very much be seen as an attack. There is no precedence in the rules to discourage it in the beginning. But now you're the devil because you might have done it, or used the mechanic in some other way that it was intended to work.

This makes me think of a witch trial. "Have you any proof?" "She turned me into a neut! I got be'er" "She has got a wart." "BURN 'ER!" "A WITCH!"

6k in Bandits after 1 hour of play? Oh good. I got.. 1.3k from Fire Giants in RDI due to them dropping goblin levels of loot. I reaaaallly hope you all BALANCE THE END GAME DUNGEON MOBS to not be dropping the same crap as goblins from the BRAMBLES!

It isn't just RDI, Ramza. Loot was lowered in all the epic zones I have gone to. Even the mid-level areas drop drastically less. No amount of appraise compensates for it, either.

Buckle up and get ready for endless grinds (where RP generally goes stale. You can only talk so much about the things you're killing before it gets monotonous). The flavor of RP will consist of: *grind grind grind, talk, grind grind grind* for most of the new players. So sorry for the inconvenience.

And I know SOMEONE is going to suggest talking about something else. Yes. Talking about our next meeting while cutting the heads off things feels TOTALLY appropriate.

Yeaaaah.. Kinda assumed that.

And I think Cortex was talking to XXX or myself. Don't take offense to it

Right now, I find that grinding through lowbie areas on my epic is the best way to make gold. If you see lowbies who want to get XP, just move on to the next area. Or be a meanie head and just keep on keeping on.

Well.. I guess it'll have to do. Sorry lowbies, but papa needs to pay for his castle.

Luckily in Underdark there's no sky to be falling.

Iria, i think you may be taking things out of proportions here. I understand this may negatively effect your characters or RP, for which I'm sorry. But I can assure you, life will go on. From the few days I've played post-update, people seem generally happy with the changes.

Times like these it's important to remember you're playing a 12 year old game and you certainly have gotten your money's worth

Aren't the changes main on cities server for now?
Could explain why some areas are still bad

Dont know, I just know if it stays like this Iria will be right and it'll be more profitable long term for Epic characters to grind lower level dungeons as the profit of doing the higher end dungeons dont outweigh the costs.

Reply for Yellena. Cheers!

Irongron wrote:I was doing this for a solid 10 hours yesterday, but still only a fraction of the way through. Mostly one will see a difference on cities and planes, but I expect it to go on being improved over the next week.

Irongron wrote:While the number of drops per creature may seem small, bear in mind that with a greatly expanded matrix we can give some creatures the occasional decent item. The problem we saw in the last 24 hours was with too many items dropping per creature then some of those items were showing regularly. Furthermore, while the _1 item for search may no seem like a huge amount, it will also, by its nature increase the chance of finding something especially good.

But as I say this is all a work in progress, the last few days I've been putting in 10 hours a day on Arelith stuff, and certain team members have been working their socks off to see this happen. Change doesn't come overnight, but in this case, we're moving rapidly in a much-needed direction.

And thanks to the efforts of Scholar Midnight, this show really isn't over yet, keep an eye out for more updates in the coming days.