Mayor feedback on Buy Orders

Sheeta

To be honest my view on the current node building system is more or less neutral(maybe leaning towards a skeptical side of things) and is at a "Lets wait and see when we have more nodes because we don't have enough data to see how this system will play out". However, I can already see the writing on the wall about buy orders and player motivations on filling them out since it is already starting to happen.

The main reason citizens fill out buy orders are to gain access to buildings to continue their own progression in whatever artisan profession they want. So when you present them with a building that, in the short term, supplies them of their needs close by, the likelihood of them using their mats to fill out a buy order will go down until they see that they have hit another wall. Most players playing AoC who are not closely following how the node building system works either have no idea or a total misunderstanding of what it takes or even how to get to journeymen gathering/processing/crafting. Leaving the topic of better UI visualization/interface to help players understand, work towards, and feel like their contribution matters, I think helping to incentivize players in other ways to fill out buy order may help players not feel like they are throwing away their mats just for some tokens they don't even know will benefit them in the future.

My suggestion to help incentivize players to fill out buy orders is to make buy orders to feel like quests more or less(AKA give exp). This will not only help increase the likelihood of buy orders being filled out, but also help players focusing on their artisan professions to not be completely left behind by all other type of players.

What do you guys think?

Veeshan

If there was useful thing on the node vendor then it might be done more aswell like right now trying to get node voucher currency is pointless for me cause my node only sells healing gear and im playing ranger or fighter so there no reason for me to do them for tokens. I think freehold will need node currency in phase 2 so that will help a bit but some other idea for voucher uses that would help everyone would be like unique node commodity that only gets purchased via voucher that u can turn in at a different node for cash (or maybe even XP instead of currency or the option of both)

but yeah at the moment as an individual there no reason for me to surrender up resources to build a node unless there building a specific build im after. ime better off selling them and having somone buy them to build the node lol

But yeah i think best solution to this is to add more thing to node currency vendor that is useful to everyone like a commodity i mention above so there incentive for everyone to do buy orders for the currency, also having the node unique currency award adventure XP instead of cash it does allow a method for crafter/gatherers to gain proper XP :P

Brasides

At first it seemed that the natural progression would be for crafters to hit level 10 and realize, "Wait, why can't I make more stuff?" These players would then learn about the node system and want to contribute to the node getting apprentice stations set up so they could remove the obstacle in their path.

Due to a few different factors it seems we are not getting a chance to see this natural progression play out. The devs have turned up the mob drops, so crafters are less incentivized to grind out better gear for their guildmates. Even the relatively short time frame of A2 phase 1 means we might not be seeing people run into the wall of wanting to craft apprentice gear but being unable to.

After looking deeper into the mechanics of crafting stats and what becomes available as the nodes progress, however, I'm starting to think that it makes more sense for informed players to use a portion of their materials for node progression. A node upgrading to apprentice in the profession you are pursuing means (for most professions) access to a vendor-sold xp scroll at apprentice tier, which can be used even by novices. This scroll provides a 65 xp rating bonus and only costs a few silver. In comparison, the common novice artisan shirt for crafting professions only adds 20-something xp rating.

If you are trying to be as resource efficient as possible while leveling your crafting, the best way would be to use both the shirt and the scroll, as this leads to around a 28% increase in your experience gain (most of which comes from the scroll locked behind node upgrades). If you are, say, an aspiring weaponsmith, and know that it will take around 2000 copper for you to get to level 10 for apprentice, but that it would only take 1500 copper if you had a smithy building, you are incentivized to fill up to 500 buy orders for copper before you're really losing anything. If everyone knew this, we might see more players parting with some of that precious copper now to save more later, especially if they want to level their craft quickly.

Another factor to consider is that people can trade their node currency for uncommon gear, but it was unclear at the very start of A2 what rarity and what slots of gear would become available in exchange for the town currency. Next phase people will already know they can get some lvl 10 gear with town currency, and if we end up unlocking lvl 20 gear this phase, it seems likely more people would be excited about racking up node currency right at the start of phase 2.

My guess is that in this phase we have all been exploring how the mechanics around nodes and crafting works. If the information on how these mechanics spreads, people will probably make the rational decision to fill some number of buy orders out of pure self-interest. With all the people who are already doing so out of the good of their own hearts, and as more gear is available to trade for town currency, I think we'll see more people interested in node contribution in the early days of the next phase.

LordPax

From my experience, the early on node growth SUCKED. They, thankfully, have adjusted resource rates and its a much smoother process. That said, I think(at least in later phases) having a vendor that sold actual materials(copper, flax, etc.), but in a limited supply. In my head, I am thinking like...in the same way the taxes help fund the node, there can be a small flat rate like ~5% or 10% of resources that are turned into buy order for node are now resources that are available for purchase from node vendors. This could help lessen the sting of needing to donate 600 copper for a single apprentice building.

It would also encourage folks to purchase *with node currency only* the resources. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Savic Prosperity

only other issue is if the say smithy npc sells the higher tier exp scroll, what is the purpose of scribe having these recipes, scribe then is just a stat scroll or enchanting scrolls, that seems kinda empty for an entire crafting profession. It can also be a good excuse to significantly rework the purpose of scribe too

i hope it is just a phase 1 thing that the npc's sell a lot of the crafting items for significantly cheaper/easier than it is for the person to craft it (looking at potions/food/scribe scrolls)

but definitely hoping they make better ways to make incentives to help the node, i also feel like since the idea is to have 'node wars' if it is extremely annoying to build up cities no one will want to go to war and destroy their masterwork buildings unless they area already geared out

also in your example where it goes from 2k to 1500 copper, i would donate 0 copper, it isnt worth putting myself behind until im already level 10 to help with upgrading buildings and even then i'd rather just get resources that are not for my primary profession since you can still use copper to level it post 10.