Goods Imbalance

[Deleted User - 3932582]

We don't. It is not possible to go infinitely far in the tournament (even setting aside that you are limited by exploration) just because you have infinite supply of T3. Every single encounter requires goods from more than one level, so there is no effective change to the number of provinces you can do, because there is no infinitase supply of T2.

The rate of T3 supply is not infinite, and it does not increase infinitely (no more so than T1 or T2 rate of production). And all what is needed for equilibrium is for the rates of supply and demand to match, and price adjustment is a mechanism to effect that. So let's ignore other goods demands outside of tournament for simplicity, and let's say that overall tournament requirements for goods are 3:2:1 (I have no idea what it is in reality, so this is an example). As this is the only source of demand in our example, this means that overall supply will have to adjust until it matches the same rate. In this case, by building more T1 and T2 at the expense of T3. Until that happens, the prices are going to move. At 3:2:1 production we reach equilibrium.

So my prediction: instead of apocalypse, we will see (after a while):
- more T1/T2 manus will be built
- less T3 manus will be built, and some might be destroyed
- lower prices for T3 vs T2 and T1
- higher tournament scores due to higher overall efficiency of goods production

Actually, when I think about it Elvenar might finally develop some economic aspect to its gameplay. This is quite exciting (to me). So far, it was pretty static in this regard.

 

[Vergazi]

@MinMax Gamer when I was deep into WoW I was one of those players who had a chair in the auction house with their name on it...sorta, lol. Buying, selling, cornering the market...buying up small lots of herbs and reposting stacks for the new, then, Inscriptions skill. Farming weird, out of the way mats and recipes to post in the AH...crafting vanilla wow twink patterns during BL and WotLK...Oh, happy times... While I understand, accept and even approve of the fact that the economy angle of Elvenar will never be anything like WoW, I still would like a bit more to do in the game with regards to the economic aspect.

Actually, when I think about it Elvenar might finally develop some economic aspect to its gameplay. This is quite exciting (to me). So far, it was pretty static in this regard.

Absolute agreement.

 

[Mykan]

Even if the sets are the cause of the problem (and I am not convinced they are), time will prove to sort this out a little depending on a couple factors:

• New sets with more power creep
• Sets were at a fixed point in time for those able to get them at that time.
• Not everyone "exploited" the power of those sets
• People not at end tech will change chapters. Depending on where they are at this will effect long term use
• Access to RR and blueprints to upgrade and keep those sets

If inno don't repeat the set or put a new super powered set in (big if's) then you should over time see this reduce if the sets are the root cause.

For me and my locale/observations I have seen the cross-tier trade effect increasing long before the sets, closer to change in tournaments. [Some] People catering use it as a way to cater more and that concept has spread.

Had a look at my trader as of right now (I used whole page numbers so some "rounding" will be at play, I refuse to count every single trade):

• 74 pages of trades of which 36 are sentient goods so 38 are normal goods
• 36 pages of sentient goods
  • 5 pages - T4 goods (Sentient)
  • 19 pages T5 goods (sentient)
  • 12 pages T6 goods (sentient)
• 18 pages are 3 star trades - all cross tier, not bothering to check how many are 101 for 100 "3 star trades"
• 3 pages of 0/1 star trades
• Using whole number T1-T3 came out as 44 pages of which 28 are cross tier
  • 6 pages T1 goods
  • 15 pages T2 goods - 5 pages cross tier
  • 23 pages T3 goods - all cross tier trades

Trading is quite good in my area/fellowship but subjectively T3 goods are my slowest to obtain (less surprising when I look above). For my area there are plenty of same tier T1 and T2 goods been traded about.

Obviously this is 1 player so not even close to a decent sample but it highlights why I feel trading and other factors are a bigger issue then sets. I have no doubt others trading will support the opposite, so perhaps area/fellowship is a bigger factor. Hard to say with out a much bigger sample.

 

[DeletedUser5521]

As a member of samidodamage's FS I firmly reject your assesment of it. Sami is the largest city in our FS and helps every member of it. I admit we are weak on silk production as those which have that boost are small and growing. They cannot support the entire FS because of their size. That is why they cannot take her trades.
However, we are a FELLOWSHIP and to suggest that just because we need to trade to have our needs for a particular resource met outside the fellowship does NOT make it what you suggest.
I believe you owe samidodamage an apology.
Encouragement of our smaller members is what is needed. Not jack boots and threats of expulsion.

Well put @Socrates28 (dang it, where's that applause emoji when you need it..? )

 

[samidodamage]

Why not just build more silk manus

Because my boost is Crystal

Oh Jesus, I almost glossed right over this, but that sounds like a very rough neighborhood. Are there fellows you can funnel your second tier to, where they can then exchange it with their neighbors for silk?

I'm the largest city with the highest goods inventory in our FS. All our silk producers are small cities. We're a 2+ yr old very casual (visit 3 days/week; score moves at least every 2 weeks kind of casual) FS of 'mature' adults and we've lost some larger producers to real life issues preventing them from continuing to play. And I'm in a great neighborhood! The best of any in our FS. Since I'm really only stockpiling to feed goods to smaller cities in the tourneys (I mostly fight) I try to time it with tourneys that don't need as much silk (for example). I'm trying for silk now because our 4 wk 10 chest push falls on silk this time. I've spoken with several neighbors and developed trading relationships over the past 2 years. I know who has silk and they'll take my trades when they see them. No, they haven't stopped playing; not sure if they've changed the amount of time they play (from daily to every other day for example). The only one I'm missing that we are light on in the FS is a large planks producer neighbor. But we are less light on that than silk.
For almost 2 years now, until the past few months, I've always been able to put up crystal for silk and have them taken within a day. I think there are two things at play: one is the massive amounts of T3 inventory; the other is the cluttered trader. Several of my neighbors are bigger than me and I'm in Amuni. When I hit Elementals, I began to check the full trader less and less as it became cluttered with Sentient 1 goods. Not flipping through 60 pages of trades I can't/won't take and that means I only see trades from my neighbors once or twice/week. No way to know how long they've been sitting there when I see them. Moving to Amuni has only made that worse. I feel for the ones in Constructs or at end game; don't blame them a bit for going through trader once/week! It was somewhere in late Elementals for me that 2 star cross tier T3:T1 or T2 trades began to bloom. That filled the trader with even more pages to flip through!

Think about it - if current T2/T3 price would indeed be 1:1,

The problem is the ratio is not really 1:1 even for just me, a market of one, lol. I would never give up T2 for T3 1:1, only the reverse. And only because of the supply glut of T3 that was making me think I'd remove factories. Right now my inventory of T2 is crystal 1.8mil, scrolls 1.5mil, silk 1.6 mil. My T3 inventory is elixir 2mil, dust 2mil, gems 2.4mil (boost is gems). Elixir and Dust went down by 400K each when I traded them for silk. And from funneling goods to other players I know we go through a lot more T1 & T2 than we do T3. So for now, for me, T3 is high in supply and low in demand. So, its value to me has taken a nose dive. If trader would let me give it away 1:1 for planks, I'd do that, too, until I got a better inventory established, lol! As our small cities grow and the difference in the T3/T2 inventory becomes less, I expect to stop this practice and reduce factories then.
My analogy to real world markets would be: There are 2 goods in production: Gizmo A and Gizmo B. While Gizmo B is more expensive to produce, someone introduced 'grants' to the Gizmo B factories that increased their production X3-4 for the same cost. Now, Gizmo B comes in at around the same cost as Gizmo A and a gazillion Gizmo B factories have popped up. I don't think this is sustainable (unless the 'grants' just keep coming) but for now, this is how I see it. And I agree with you that this is probably where it's going:

- more T1/T2 manus will be built
- less T3 manus will be built, and some might be destroyed
- lower prices for T3 vs T2 and T1
- higher tournament scores due to higher overall efficiency of goods production

I believe you owe samidodamage an apology.

Thanks, Socrates, but I don't think @Count Mein owes an apology. They had no way of knowing that (a) I'm not an Archmage and (b) the peculiarities of our particular FS right now. It's unusual for a player to see trading T3:T2 1:1 as a good use of resources/city space and I get that. I'm just odd

 

[SoggyShorts]

Now I think you are actually being snarky? I have said on here for the past couple of years that I always replaced my old sets with the new sets. It helps keep the game at least a little interesting by refreshing the looks.

It's not really snarky to point out that you can't choose both to replace buildings based on a theme or other aesthetics as your priority and also complain about lower productions.

 

[Crowella]

If there is actually an imbalance that is due to overproduction from sets, there is a fairly simple way that INNO could resolve the problem, albeit one that I do not advocate and hope they do not implement: Simply make storage of goods finite, perhaps tied to main hall level. Even if the storage limit were very large, eventually the problem of costless production would yield to the problem of storage with a "cost" (that is, the cost being that you couldn't accumulate any more of that resource).

Again, I really hope they don't do that, but it would solve the problem after some painful period of recalibration, if set buildings and low-cost production of T3 are the cause. They already introduced this sort of storage "cost" with the decay of mana (not tradeable) and sentient goods. Decay of T3 resources would of course be another way of dealing with the issue.

 

[DeletedUser20255]

As a member of samidodamage's FS I firmly reject your assesment of it. Sami is the largest city in our FS and helps every member of it. I admit we are weak on silk production as those which have that boost are small and growing. They cannot support the entire FS because of their size. That is why they cannot take her trades.
However, we are a FELLOWSHIP and to suggest that just because we need to trade to have our needs for a particular resource met outside the fellowship does NOT make it what you suggest.
I believe you owe samidodamage an apology.
Encouragement of our smaller members is what is needed. Not jack boots and threats of expulsion.

I invite you to read my post again. There was no criticism of samiodamage other than to suggest she should "jump on" her silk producers. A responder suggested that asking them to do better would be better phraseology to which I concurred. There was no mention of jack boots and threats of expulsion. Chill out!
In an FS of 25 members 6 to 9 should be silk-boosted. Are they all small? Or are one or two just not pulling their weight? If the former it shows lack of foresight with accepting members. If the latter then they need to be jumpe..... errrrr.. asked to do better.

 

[Deborah M]

It's not really snarky to point out that you can't choose both to replace buildings based on a theme or other aesthetics as your priority and also complain about lower productions.

When the heck did I complain about lower productions? I take exception to this recent attitude that if players aren't eliminating factories by holding on to old set buildings then they aren't doing it 'right'. I have no problem with my 8 of each mfg and I have the room for them with all expansions. I do not want piles of old stuff!

Why would you replace your set instead of factories? Because Timon said "players will mostly replace old sets."
That doesn't even factor in RR spells.

I never said I replaced old set buildings because Timon said anything. I said I had always replaced them to freshen up my city. Timon later did indicate that that was one of their intention. Besides, I do not want a bunch of icy winter stuff piled up in my city in June. Sorry I needed to put out a couple until I get dailies I'm waiting for. I was a bit sad to sell off the winter market but not because of what they did. I would have liked to keep some of them because I have very fond memories of loading up on Christmas ornaments in winter markets in Germany & other countries after I gave my kids all of their yearly ornaments for their own Christmas trees. Perfect example of why I enjoy the game instead of everything being about proving I can do math & spreadsheets. After an entire career doing that, no thank you!

 

[Socrates28]

I invite you to read my post again. There was no criticism of samiodamage other than to suggest she should "jump on" her silk producers. A responder suggested that asking them to do better would be better phraseology to which I concurred. There was no mention of jack boots and threats of expulsion. Chill out!
In an FS of 25 members 6 to 9 should be silk-boosted. Are they all small? Or are one or two just not pulling their weight? If the former it shows lack of foresight with accepting members. If the latter then they need to be jumpe..... errrrr.. asked to do better.

Since samidodamage does not think you owe her an aplogy then that ends it.
I apologize for the over zealousness of my comment. However, I do beleive that a threat was implied in what you wrote.
Perhaps next time neither one of us should be too quick to jump to conclusions or pass judgment on others.

 

[SoggyShorts]

When the heck did I complain about lower productions?

Here:

You all are assuming that everybody keeps the set buildings. In a way that makes me feel screwed for playing as Elvenar designed.

Feeling like you are getting "screwed" sounds like a complaint.

 

[Deborah M]

@SoggyShorts Ok. That isn’t what I meant but I get it. I don’t have a shortage of T1,2 or 3 so no complaints on that. I do have a complaint toward devs for creating a situation where playing as designed can actually be detrimental compared to exploiting unbalanced event prizes.

 

[Mykan]

@SoggyShorts Ok. That isn’t what I meant but I get it. I don’t have a shortage of T1,2 or 3 so no complaints on that. I do have a complaint toward devs for creating a situation where playing as designed can actually be detrimental compared to exploiting unbalanced event prizes.

There is always going to be some exploit somewhere. Players have a habit of finding them and maximising their priorities which aren't always the same as the devs. For example I see KP as a highly prized reward but the head CM said inno see it as the lowest form of reward. It's why they constantly have to balance things and sometimes that balance is to take away or reduce something.

I had completely missed any comments from them about replacing sets each event. Even if I had I would have ignored it as I select my items based on my own criteria to suit my own game-play and only replace items if something suits my purpose better. Generally the devs don't tell us how we "should" play, would be an interesting discussion in itself. There are indicators in the game which hint at it like quests and buildings we can't delete or rewards restricted to certain aspects (KP instants for wonders).

 

[kctanzen]

Travelling Merchant 2 may become an interesting crafting option as well......

 

[Ashrem]

Travelling Merchant 2 may become an interesting crafting option as well......

I suppose. It would only take 16 TM2 (96 squares) of my current level to make as many T2 as the T3 my previous-chapter Jester's tavern (16 squares) makes (setting aside culture and a kp every day).

 

[DeletedUser17455]

The solution was not to nerf aluminum production

This is my favourite point so far!

A phrase I often repeat to myself in these sorts of situations is "before you blame others, blame yourself." Many people are in the mindset that "I am playing correctly, and others are not" when they look at the market and see things that don't make sense to them. Rather than waiting on Inno to nerf something or release a new feature... why not adapt to the changes in the game's economy?

Expecting nothing to ever change is not "a functional economy" it is "the absence of an economy".

 

[DeletedUser4194]

@Fairy Dust While this might not meet the technical definition of a "bug" I created it in the bugs forum because it is a serious issue which needs to be pointed out to the developers asap if they don't already know about it. The problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

Understood. I did have to move it from the bugs section for the reason you described. This is a great discussion and we love our community input, it's the only way to make things better! I will do what I can on my end

 

[Ashrem]

This is my favourite point so far!

Sadly, liking it doesn't make it valid. Aluminum is cheap because it turns out there's a lot more than people thought, the advent of electrical power made it convenient to produce, and there are lot of good uses for it once it became cheap to use. No matter how Cheap T3 goods get, we don't ahve any use for appreciably more of them, because the only flexible uses (tournaments and scouting) are also restricted by something else. If the only way to use a kilo of Aluminum was to alos use a Kilo of gold and a kilo of silver, the world wouldn't be producing as much as it is, and we couldn't be shipping soda in it.

A phrase I often repeat to myself in these sorts of situations is "before you blame others, blame yourself." Many people are in the mindset that "I am playing correctly, and others are not" when they look at the market and see things that don't make sense to them. Rather than waiting on Inno to nerf something or release a new feature... why not adapt to the changes in the game's economy?

Expecting nothing to ever change is not "a functional economy" it is "the absence of an economy".

Elvenar isn't a functional economy. It's an artificial economy for the game's purpose. How cheap any good is doesn't change the number of ways to use it. All it does is penalize the people who don't understand that. I'm not getting hurt in the least. I'm not going to (and never did) accept crosstrades down. I have a bunch of extra T3, and have diverted all of my supply-based productions away from it. I'm doing fine. Players who don't see what's happening are running short of T1 and T2 goods. "why not adapt to the changes in the game's economy" is something you constantly hear from people who have millions in the bank. It instantly brought to mind when a leading politician at the height of the 2009 meltdown said the equivalent of "Well it looks like there's a great opportunity to buy some cheap stocks to me."

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

No matter how Cheap T3 goods get, we don't ahve any use for appreciably more of them, because the only flexible uses (tournaments and scouting) are also restricted by something else.

We went through this already. Catering is only restricted by something else if current builds stay the same. They don't have to be, that's how economy (real or virtual) adjusts to changes in production efficiency. If you can produce T3s cheaper than before, you build relatively more T1/T2 and less of T3 - comparing to the builds of old. You will be able to go further in the tournaments as your aggregate supply across all goods goes up.

For the record, I don't have millions in the bank. My T1/T2/T3 levels fluctuate in 200K-500K range, sometimes going down to 100K. I won't have any issues with replacing some or all of my T3 manus with T2 if I see it is worth it. So far, it hasn't been the case.

 

[Ashrem]

We went through this already. Catering is only restricted by something else if current builds stay the same.

The entire point of this thread is that they need to change something, so thanks for pointing that out. The only thing players can do is stretch out the problem for a longer horizon.