Remaining Organizations

[Delirium]

Easy, don't let your newbie crafters use the expensive stuff until you trust their abilities.

And honestly, GMH's should be looking for talented crafters, not people who are going to waste their resources.

[Riev]

Easy, don't let your newbie crafters use the expensive stuff until you trust their abilities.

And honestly, GMH's should be looking for talented crafters, not people who are going to waste their resources.

I was going to longwindedly say similar.

Recruit Crafters are ALWAYS difficult to get, because very few people care so much about crafting in the game that they want to craft one item every 30days, maybe, in a clan that doesn't have much internal struggle.

However, without Hunters around, Crafters can be delegated to acquiring resources, cleaning out stores so that they only have what is -useful- and not "but maybe someday" items. A crafter in a House can do so much, but with so many MC subguilds now, I think its easier NOT to be part of a clan. Your table is going to be just as quality as the Kadian table, codedly. =\

[tortall]

Easy, don't let your newbie crafters use the expensive stuff until you trust their abilities.

And honestly, GMH's should be looking for talented crafters, not people who are going to waste their resources.

Having them use the cheap stuff is still a lot of cheap stuff, though in my example Salarr crafter needs hides to practice tanning. Takes a lot of hides before they're getting good at it and don't ruin them. 50 tandu/gortok hides is till 50 hides that need to be collected.

Point me to one crafter that skilled up BEFORE going to a GMH. That was the only reason I, as a crafter, would ever have gone to a GHM. I get the resources to work at my craft, I get protection, I get food, I get a place to sleep, and I get(hopefully) PCs with knowledge to share with me. Without PC hunters in the clan, getting resources can be difficult.

I've been a PC merchant in Salarr without any active hunters and 1 or 2 crafters. Trying to get resources is HARD. They can't just go out and start hunting goudra and tandu. Sure, they can go forage for branches and stone, but that's about it. It shouldn't be hard for a GMH to get resources, and it -seems- like it is now. Again, speaking from past experience and maybe all those indi hunters are actually able to help out and get what is needed.


I dunno, maybe I'm the crazy player that LIKES sitting around an RPing crafting and making things and getting them to people and organizing the crafters hall and making sure we had the right supplies and making sure my hunters were properly outfitted. I loved the merchant role, even if it was more often than not a PC shop. :-D

Also, I don't know how long you think it takes to clean up some place, but I've knocked out an entire compound in 3-4 hours.

[WithSprinkles]

+1 Tortall

[Delirium]

So... do you want resource scarcity or do you not want resource scarcity?

You can't have it both ways.

Honestly, I would be shocked if there weren't enough PC resources to keep the GMH compounds fully stocked.

You have to actually keep inventory and work for it, now... which... you can do in your newly freed-up time.

[bardlyone]

I like the idea of trying to make indie hunters more valuable to pcs somehow.

I don't think that outsourcing is smart, cheaper, or makes particular sense. Largely for the reasons that other people who have a lot of experience as a pc crafter have put forth.

It's not like you paid hunter pcs at ALL during their first year. At all. And everything after that which they brought in belonged to the House. Even then, their pay compared to the materials needed on average, was more or less peanuts. You didn't have to pay extra to house them in barracks that were already there. And when most pc hunters were bringing in the food fed to everyone else in many cases, counting food as part of expenses doesn't even make sense. The only thing they cost the House is 5'x5' space basically. Until they have been on for a year, where even 2 diamonds brought in (which a max forage can easily net in a day) pays their entire salary for a pay period.

Paying people to bring them in doesn't make resources more scarce. It makes the portion of resources which Kadius or Salarr has more scarce. That is not the same as making resources more scarce.

[WithSprinkles]

Perhaps the people who were saying there was a problem with resource scarcity were not the same people who believe that merchant house hunters had a place. Or maybe they are, who knows? (shrugs)

All that has happened is another RP opportunity has been shut down, in my opinion. The hunters of the merchant houses may not have been as lauded as the Wyverns or Scorpions in people's memories, but they were valued and appreciated. And now they're crossed out on a list of roles to be played. SOME people may not have wanted to play them, but they were played. If it's as simple as people think to keep a compound stocked on outside resources, then I challenge people to apply for the sponsored role next time it pops up and give it a whirl. Make that sid and pay out of pocket for those hides/cloth/gems/whatever your people need and make it happen and then tell of your success. I may be looking at things from an outdated perspective, but I can't imagine they've changed much. Hunters were a treasure every bit as much as crafters.

As for hiring only experienced PC's, well. That would be a bit of a PC cultural shift and not bad to see. Generally, people join and grow and improve and weave their stories in the clans they are part of, that I have seen. My thought is, take mastercraft away from everyone but merchants and/or institute a level of quality that can only be achieved if one is part of a merchant house. THEN talk to outside hunters about the importance of keeping those houses supplied if they want their badass armor. Synergy. Encourage them to form groups and sponsor those groups outside the house. Back other's ventures who help you.

And if freed up time means empty warehouses, disgruntled crafters and unfulfilled orders...? I don't get that last statement.

[BadSkeelz]

Are the apartments on Merchant's Road going to have their leasing-restrictions looked at? I wager there's more apartments in there than there are actual GMH-employees in Allanak now.

[Miradus]

... My thought is, take mastercraft away from everyone but merchants and/or institute a level of quality that can only be achieved if one is part of a merchant house.

I'm still sore the house hunter roles are gone but I am not sure that the answer is taking yet another thing away from the playerbase.

The game is not an efficient economic simulator. It was never designed for that, I think. Before I took away anything from the PC, I'd strip the NPC markets completely bare of loaded items. The only things you can buy are things that have been sold to that NPC. Let the economy be entirely player-driven except for the chargen shops.

I like economic sim games. A LOT. I'd like to see that side of Arm beefed up a little to catch up with the political and survival elements.

As a merchant, I enjoyed like 9k in the bank and still ran into the "what do I do with all this money" obstacle. I lacked any creative ideas that would have worked within the game engine (without massive amounts of storyteller attention).

[Akaramu]

As a merchant, I enjoyed like 9k in the bank and still ran into the "what do I do with all this money" obstacle. I lacked any creative ideas that would have worked within the game engine (without massive amounts of storyteller attention).

You haven't bribed enough templars and / or other PCs then. Money makes the world go round and drives plots. 

[Feco]

As a merchant, I enjoyed like 9k in the bank and still ran into the "what do I do with all this money" obstacle. I lacked any creative ideas that would have worked within the game engine (without massive amounts of storyteller attention).

You haven't bribed enough templars and / or other PCs then. Money makes the world go round and drives plots. 

I was gonna say that it sounds like Templars, soldiers, and (other) criminals weren't doing their job.

[Miradus]

I was based in Luir's. You'd be doing good if you could find someone to talk to in daytime hours, much less somebody who needed bribing/paying.

Less than money being a motivation, seems like most players just want to be part of something.

[Miradus]

I also don't feel that a bribe to the authorities is a "plot". Paying kickbacks to the Arm or being forced to buy a merchant token is not a plot. Those are just sort of expected business things (particularly in Allanak).

I feel like a plot is paying/enticing other players to go do things on some longer term basis. Giving them a plot hook to go out and *do things*. Coins are just sort of an enticement for that.

As an independent, I felt it was hard to think of real reasons to do so.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Barsook]

Salarr as that.

[Akaramu]

Bribing a templar to harass (insert person you hate) starts a plot!
Bribing a (informed person) to tell you everything they know about X helps you start a related plot!
Paying people to investigate places you vaguely heard about starts plots!

It's not always about buying items you need.

[Harmless]

Just wanted to post that the concept of "filthy rich grebber" made me laugh because I have never played nor seen this. Thanks to the 5 item limit, merchant wealth limits and the longer delay between reboots it will be even less likely that I will ever be a filthy rich grebber with a future character. Not to mention every new apartment costs more and more, and my "every few days" playtimes.

No, my hunters or grebbers will NOT be trading with merchant houses much. Unless they contract me to go out to purposefully get what they need, I will rarely ever have what they happen to want.

The GMH should post announcements on various appropriate grebber friendly IG message boards about what they want, honestly. Relying on person to person contact to inform indie grebbers what they could sell is going to lead to sandhoppers chirping all year round with very little indie to GMH trading.

[Akaramu]

The GMH should post announcements on various appropriate grebber friendly IG message boards about what they want, honestly. Relying on person to person contact to inform indie grebbers what they could sell is going to lead to sandhoppers chirping all year round with very little indie to GMH trading.

Wouldn't it be neat if each GMH had an NPC outside their compound who announces to would-be hunters what the GMH needs, along with the names of GMH PCs to sell to?

[Synthesis]

There are NPC merchants in Allanak that will sell you cheap raw materials for every merchant starting crafting skill except lumberjacking (obviously).  You don't need hunters to greb that stuff for you, because you can just go haggle it down at the NPC shop.  Mastering a crafting skill happens so quickly that you really shouldn't be using anything that required an expedition to acquire -at all- until you're maxed, not just mastered.  If your PC superior is miffed at you for haggling from NPCs and selling the crap loot you make while skilling up, they're a damn fool (unless you aren't giving them a cut or whatever).

If you can't get rich grebbing, then you aren't playing a PC-type that has any business outside the gates.  Even an assassin with a hunter-ish subclass can get ludicrously wealthy on greb, if you know what you're doing, because there is almost always a vacancy in the middle-top tier greb market niche, due to PC turnover.  (I'm including basic skinning loot as "greb."  If literally all you're doing is foraging, it might not be possible, unless you've got a class/subclass with a higher forage cap...but I don't think I've ever really put the "how much loot can I acquire strictly from foraging?" question to a hard test.)

[Bushranger]

There are NPC merchants in Allanak that will sell you cheap raw materials for every merchant starting crafting skill except lumberjacking (obviously).  You don't need hunters to greb that stuff for you, because you can just go haggle it down at the NPC shop.  Mastering a crafting skill happens so quickly that you really shouldn't be using anything that required an expedition to acquire -at all- until you're maxed, not just mastered.  If your PC superior is miffed at you for haggling from NPCs and selling the crap loot you make while skilling up, they're a damn fool (unless you aren't giving them a cut or whatever).

If you can't get rich grebbing, then you aren't playing a PC-type that has any business outside the gates.  Even an assassin with a hunter-ish subclass can get ludicrously wealthy on greb, if you know what you're doing, because there is almost always a vacancy in the middle-top tier greb market niche, due to PC turnover.  (I'm including basic skinning loot as "greb."  If literally all you're doing is foraging, it might not be possible, unless you've got a class/subclass with a higher forage cap...but I don't think I've ever really put the "how much loot can I acquire strictly from foraging?" question to a hard test.)

+1. This pretty much sums it up nicely.

[Harmless]

I am pretty sure the characters I play are capable of being rich, codedly, but I am not the type to minmax the grebbing and hunting game to the point that they become rich, plus I don't play often, and grinding coins has always been a boring and nearly anti-fun as has been suggested above. I don't want readers of this thread to get the idea that all grebbers are rich. The most I ever earned with a grebber was around 3 small at once after selling a huge number of various herbs I grebbed from the grasslands in the south, before merchants ran out of coin. Naturally nobody wanted to buy any of said herbs among the few players I asked and the only desired herb in my bag was one needed to make a certain uncommon cure tablet. Hunted goods are even harder to sell as I think there is exactly one shop in Nak that buys hunted raw goods and about 1 merchant in every major settlement, usually those merchants pay diddly (20-60 coins per piece).

These are with PCs with advanced to master skinning, ride, dsense, and fighting skills capable of taking out common critters like raptors or ox or scrabs, etc. So yeah, codedly capable but I don't grind to the point that I have ever been "filthy rich." Costs such as supplies, water, rent, and occasional purchases of gear make accumulating vast sums impossible for me when doing a long grebbing run once or twice a week at most.

[Miradus]

... If literally all you're doing is foraging, it might not be possible, unless you've got a class/subclass with a higher forage cap...but I don't think I've ever really put the "how much loot can I acquire strictly from foraging?" question to a hard test.)

I had a grebber who could (and did) master foraging.

The problem is that everything available to master forage skill is also available to novice forage skill. The only thing the skill seems to do is determine whether or not you find something. When you do find something it appears to roll against the loot table for that room without regard to your actual skill. I'm guessing, I don't know how the code actually works, but grebbing alongside a journeyman grebber with my master grebber, he might still end up with more gems in his pocket based on how the RNG went.

It's far easier to get rich by just running through some areas and filling up your bag with flowers. Or to go chop down some trees.

The other side of the coin (ha) is that, if your OOC knowledge of the game is good enough to know what things sell for the best coin and where then your knowledge is also good enough to know how to fill your packs with water and food. You kind of got to go out of your way to really NEED coin.

[nauta]

Bear in mind there is a difference between the grebber/ranger who can travel to all the various outposts to trade and sell, and one who is limited to Allanak.

Mind, I haven't -tried- to play someone who only trades in Allanak, but my hunch is it will be a lot harder to get rich than in the north, where low PC population, coupled with lots of vendors yields pretty quick wealth.

I also don't have a lot to add, but I think it's a good discussion to have.

[Riev]

forage stones for ruby


Regardless on ORGANIZATIONS....

With so many fewer House Hunters, the GMHs that had internal apartments... those added in a bit extra for niceties that are now going to spread to the apartments in the only city that matters (be real).

I just hope that's being monitored.

[Miradus]

Riev hates a derailed thread.

What I would like to do with an indie hunter is become known for bringing in ONE THING. I don't want to have to hunt down someone with a full bag and go, "Anything in here you want?" I want to be the guy who gets the duskhorn cock, or whatever, and always has it on hand.

Like the French fur trappers of the early Americas brought in beaver. They didn't come back with some wolf skulls and a handful of gems. They came back with beaver and there were people who knew to go set up camps and BUY beaver from them. (Usually paying some gunpowder, lead, tobacco and whiskey.)

That gets to be a hassle if you are the guy who specializes in say, marble. You can't exactly carry it around in large quantities.