Economy going to crap?

[Sevenless]

Honestly, it's supply and demand. Most people can make leather and forage for junk, but mass producing metal is more capital intense and has a much higher demand.

I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner tbh.

[belibutn]

But I see a lot more people producing metal. When that happens, the price is going to drop even more, and the problem with the leather will transfer itself to metal. Right now it seems to be happening with food as well.

If we could dump EVERYTHING to the vendor, then that would give at least give the market a minimum price on items.

[Sevenless]

I don't see the economy suffering at all if things are still being traded. If people aren't stupid, trading with other players means they're earning more money than they could by going out and cricket punching. Perhaps it's not as good, but if it's still better than the NPC shop that's fine with me.

The economy truly going to **** would be if trading stopped entirely. If anything, we're seeing more and more goods entering the market and being traded, if at lower prices. A good part of this has to do with noobs. Noobs have certain demands (metal/nails) and certain products (forageables mostly). Since there's been a lot of beta keys given out, noobs were at a higher proportion of the market than they should be in the long run. The market effects we're seeing are these noobs settling down and "maturing". They're more aware of things they can make for silver, and those markets are seeing more competition.

[sabinati]

But I see a lot more people producing metal. When that happens, the price is going to drop even more, and the problem with the leather will transfer itself to metal. Right now it seems to be happening with food as well.

If we could dump EVERYTHING to the vendor, then that would give at least give the market a minimum price on items.

nah. the market for leather is bad because leather doesn't hold much value. metal has higher intrinsic value as well as higher cost (in both time and resources) to produce. while we probably will see lower prices in the future for metal, i don't think they will fall too far from where they are now.

right now with food there is barely anyone selling it... too early to say where that market will go but nowhere but up imo. it's a market with basically infinite demand.

[JeffGV]

right now with food there is barely anyone selling it... too early to say where that market will go but nowhere but up imo. it's a market with basically infinite demand.

Cause everyone can cook the same things without problems. Beside the farming products, all the other ingredients are at base purity, so the recipes get ruined by the low purity ingredients. I've tried to cook some recipes, they simply aren't worth producing. Especially for the real time involved in growing the products. I should store ingredients for some weeks to have a consistent amount of food to sell, and even then, it would be only slightly better than the normal one. And even then, i should have a mean of selling it (since food wouldn't be profitable enough to sell it via stands, i should sell it manually).

Or i may spend an hour in the wild and kill crickets. Or rabbits and deer, to produce leather. Either way, it would be more profitable.

[Feedzor]

I think it's got to do with the amount of things you can actually do in this game and the time frame in which you can learn these things. Together with the increasing player base this can cause a problem.
Starting and doing agriculture can be done in a few days. The same goes for mining, buy a dowsing rod and take prospecting, then build the required buildings and you are set. It's not like getting ore, lime or coal is hard. So everyone is doing the same thing because of the lack of other things. Also leather is easily made, it's not like people require 6 backpacks. You can't do a lot with leather either.

Say they would make mines more rare, making them able to deplete, and add a couple of new metal-types. These things together would make it more valuable and will make the game more diverse. Say you can only specialize in one type of metal mining, then players are actually required to trade.

I'm just saying some things I guess. Since the game is in beta there isn't much you can say. But I do think Salem will lose a number of players again who have already seen everything. Heck, I've been playing for 2 weeks now and I've done most.

Also to add, once you have the claim size you want and need, silver isn't really that big of a deal anymore.

[JeffGV]

They should do so with farming product as well. Some kind of limit about what you can farm in a certain area.Imho, they should put on again terrain purity (just the terrain, not animals or forageables). And then make it so crops need a certain range of some alchemical elements to grow, maybe giving a plenty bonus as you near the exact value.
And making it so you can adjust the alchemical values using dirt with different alchemical elements (crops may do that as well, they could add some elements and decrease others, in very small amounts). Obviously you shouldn't be able to have different elements one near the others. Tiles would have to be similar in alchemical values, so putting a very different alchemical element in a tile would affect tiles in a certain range.

[MagicManICT]

They should do so with farming product as well. Some kind of limit about what you can farm in a certain area.Imho, they should put on again terrain purity (just the terrain, not animals or forageables). And then make it so crops need a certain range of some alchemical elements to grow, maybe giving a plenty bonus as you near the exact value.

But the crops never were based on this, anyway. The properties of the items you were using to fertilize the crops was providing that influence, so if just the dirt has alchemical properties and that isn't passed on to the forageables, then dross still becomes the only fertilizer that will raise purity (lime and clay would, too, in this case).

You're idea isn't without complete merit, though. It would be reasonable to see random purity fields as long as the natural cap on it was something like 5 or 10% just to provide a starter for crops to "mutate" into better purity without as much randomness or the need for heavy dross.

[JeffGV]

They should do so with farming product as well. Some kind of limit about what you can farm in a certain area.Imho, they should put on again terrain purity (just the terrain, not animals or forageables). And then make it so crops need a certain range of some alchemical elements to grow, maybe giving a plenty bonus as you near the exact value.

But the crops never were based on this, anyway. The properties of the items you were using to fertilize the crops was providing that influence, so if just the dirt has alchemical properties and that isn't passed on to the forageables, then dross still becomes the only fertilizer that will raise purity (lime and clay would, too, in this case).

You're idea isn't without complete merit, though. It would be reasonable to see random purity fields as long as the natural cap on it was something like 5 or 10% just to provide a starter for crops to "mutate" into better purity without as much randomness or the need for heavy dross.

Mh, maybe i wasn't clear enough. What i'm talking about is to make so that crops need a certain range of elements to grow, but that wouldn't have any effect on their purity.
For example, let's say that wheat grows well in a terrain with a slight concentration of salt and with high lead (let's say the exact values are 20 salt and 50 lead). And let's say that the crop grows in a range of 20 points. We would have three situations.
(10<salt<30) && (40<salt<60) In this range of elements, the crop grows well. There could be some bonus as you approach the exact value.
(salt<10 || salt>30)&&(lead < 40 || lead > 60) The crop can't grow at all
[(10<salt<30) &&(lead < 40 || lead > 60)]||[(salt<10 || salt>30)&& (40<salt<60)] The crop grows poorly. Some kind of heavy plenty malus?

It is made so just so you can't grow all the crops in a same area (obviously, there should also be more crops involved other than the four we already have). It could even avoid using the alchemical elements and introduce some kind of other factors, i've used them just to make it simple. Or it could be make so the purity of the food also depends on the terrain (so when they grow poorly, it could be you get a purity malus; as they near the exact value, the purity gets bigger). I was talking about plenty cause it makes more sense, imho. If the terrain isn't right, you can't have plentiful harvests.
Sure, the system we've got since now should need some changes. Maybe a cap in raising plenty with fertilizers equal to double the value the harvest had when it got planted (so that poor harvests would remain poor despite fertilizers). Maybe a malus in the plenty given by stocks and cultivars if the terrain isn't right enough (as above, poor harvests are poor).

[Sevenless]

Nodes are gone for good. There's just too many problems with them for gameplay balancing to handle. And if you've got ideas for how mechanics can be changed, toss it into the Ideas forum where people other than us noob helpers will read it.

Not to say your idea is bad, it really isn't. But basing it on the recreation of a node system is going directly against the direction Jorb and Loftar have decided to take this game.