Privateering and Trading have both come pointless

[Gildr]

Before the reset/release I used to like to trade a little to supplement my income. I love trading. And I thought the economic system was great then, and fairly realistic, in that certain ports produced limited quantities of a certain good, which could be sold at a tidy profit if taken to a distant port that consumed it. You could make a lot of money doing it, so I did it. Despite the huge amount of time required. But now, the economic system seems to have become quite arbitrary where you can buy pretty much any given good (there are loads of even rare goods in a capital port) and just take it as far as possible on the map for max profit. It seems to be a sadistic sort of system that seeks to reward players most up for endless hours of mindless sailing (Bermuda anyone?).

Sadly what this means is that I will not be trading. I can barely profit at all anymore on a long haul from kpr to cartagena. Thats, what, a 4-5 hour trip? I have to make a 200% profit at least to make that worth my while. I think you're current system is giving maybe a 20% profit.

Why? This makes trading pointless. And so it is going to take player-traders off the map, removing tons of pvp content. Before, there were traders running trade routes. And you could go find those shipping lanes and kill them. That was a fun hunt. Now, you have people grinding missions in far corners of the map, running resources to specialized ports in far corners of the map, and pvp in pvp hotspots. All those things are fine and great. i love the specialized port feature cause it makes clans Very invested in their ports now and creates some real precious supply chains. But why remove the entire trade economy? Age of sail trade is something I absolutely love. Patrician is one of my all time fav games, and its just about inter-port trade. As far as I can tell, it's been totally killed now! 

Lastly, AI traders used to carry meaningful goods and doubloons that made sailing to enemy waters to privateer worthwhile. That was an excellent feature because it made venturing into enemy waters profitable, which led to organic pvp content. Organic pvp content is the most enjoyable. Because it feels realistic and atmospheric. But since I have not once taken a profitable AI trader haul (after 15+ hauls) Im not going to waste my time, because my time is precious. Im really sad about this. Because it feels like the only thing thats good bang for buck to engage in now is the gamey grinding missions. I get bored with those very quick. I dont explore with those. There's no risk or mystery with those.

PvP will still and always be fun. I just hope you guys change it back to where its not the only thing, and this game has all the layers and depth of interest for all sorts of players that it can and should have.

(I looove the port investment, such a great idea in my opinion).

Edited August 26, 2019 by Gildr

[vazco]

This is a very interesting point. In the past I thought distance-based prices are more or less ok. Still, not having occasions, or trade routes which are more profitable, indeed makes trade boring and pointless. There are not many traders.

 

And yes, I trade only between Bermuda and other ports. Just because I have an alt. I wouldn't do this on a single account.

[Guest]

i remember the time when my clan planned musket bombs in gracias a dios, hauling probably 100k seville muskets over a timelapse of 30 days, crafted with materials from belize, santanillas and placer with the final crafting spot in misteriosa, then hauling it after with indiamans and HEAVY escort.. oohhh those times were fun, even though they took time and planning.

[Sea Archer]

We need a better economy, not just making money with passenger and cargo runs. Especially the cargo missions kill real trading. And ports should need a weekly supply of some goods, to have real cargo runs apart from those for crafting material. 

[blademage]

Most of us remember "better times". In the past, everything was better - even future

But yes. Trades have really become less profitable and AI-Trader seem to have really bad loot (got 100xSabicu today and a barrel of pork^^)

[Atreides]

Tobacco was my cash crop for a long time, raced everywhere to buy it and then sail my laden ships back to KPR which was always out, I fulfilled a need.

 

[vazco]

29 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

When people can haul 2 or 3 times the current amount you will see "real" traders again.

Not really. It will be still most profitable to sail your alt to Bermuda. It's not fun, doesn't create interesting engagements, and is good only for people with alts.

To repair a system, a trade routes should be introduced - some publicly available, some requiring to be found. One would bring high-risk, high-reward trade and action, second one would bring high reward for people who can research routes.

[Admiral Olsen]

Trade in this game is so much more than just hauling stuff from the store from point A to point B or doing missions.

You can buy decent priced ships, books, permits from other players and materials from your forests and mines and sell this stuff with lots of profit to your outposts in capital cities. Set contracts, if you want to achive better prices. Trade may cost you time and effort, but trade here is one thing not: Dead.

So, if you like more trading, expand your horizon and simply do it! It's all already in the game, it's more than PvP and missions.

[Ferdinand de LaSalle]

Thanks for the discussion. Yes the former trade is pretty dead.

How it could be changed.

Go back to the Situation one year ago with

1. Delete this idiotic 100 tons rule to raise the earn ratio. The DEV´s could first to try out with giving every nation or every zone four or five goods  based on 10 tons or 1 tons per piece. Later if the Change is sucessful they can do this for more goods.

2. Raise the earn ratio generally with reducing the idiotic distance rule. Life time is important for all. So it must be possible to sail up to 1 hour in every distance to reach a earn ratio from up to 3:1.

3. Install special trade missions as a task to deliver a certain amount and a certain good in a special Harbour in a limited time.

4. Open a gate to get rare goods and components like (Permits, Combat medals, books) with trading. The Price could be high but it must be tradeable

5. Install drop points in a few certain harbours for very expensive and rare goods. This drop points will change in certain times to other ports. This should be done in a very small way, and only for luxury, not to influencing the port investments

Result: Newbees, single players and weaker nation will have a vital source to development. The Friends of hardcore PvP will have a lot of new and attractive targets. And generally the gap between expierenced player with alts and a strong clan behind to all others can be reduced a little.

Ferdinand de La Salle

[Razee]

Ha parisian furniture was where it was at you trading noobs.

But i agree, there are more tbrigs at the water, but everyone i capped had only passenger and cargo missions aboard..insta sink

[Sea Archer]

Apart from trade routes, supplying towns with and such stuff, should bring a nice income. Every town shall consume a certain amount of goods (shall differ from town to town), which shall be profitable to sell until the demand is fullfilled. The demand shall be reset at maintenance, and may change from day to day.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Close to 100% profit might be possible with some routes ( but has to be a variety of goods and not only one ), but very high risk and long ( reason why when we see them they are some indiaman fleets sailing with some player escorts ). Try something like from anywhere on the gulf and down to guayguayare area for example.

But good discussion albeit I'm only reading benefits for the trader. Where's the benefits for the corsair/privateer ?

Trade goods aren't it, this I can guarantee you. Crafting goods is where it was always at. Those are the cargo worth capturing and bringing home.

Where are those at the moment ? Privateer has to sail far and wide to hit a resource convoy ( it happens rarely, but it happens ). I guess same as a very high profit for a trader. At the moment it has to sail far and wide. So both are in the same boat.

By opening the trade lanes profit, what does the privateer benefit as well ? Again, trade goods aren't it. They are as valuable as cargo missions. So at the moment both trader and corsair share the same risk/reward. What would a different system benefit the risk/reward for both ?

 

 

[vazco]

1 hour ago, Intrepido said:

However the best fix would be an increase of the initial selling price of all goods by 100%.

This would only increase inflation, while keeping trade boring, distance-based and most profitable for people with alts. 

 

Current economy at least has a stable currency value, which is great - it's a success of devs, probably due to trade not giving tremendous profit. 

Trade should be made more fun, not just more profitable in general. Otherwise economy will crumble again. 

[vazco]

2 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

how do you make trading more fun when the puropose of trading is to earn money?

 

9 hours ago, vazco said:

trade routes should be introduced - some publicly available, some requiring to be found. One would bring high-risk, high-reward trade and action, second one would bring high reward for people who can research routes.

Just increasing profit is not making things fun. It is fun when you can "win" proffits by either monitoring the market, or by sailing a risky, publicly available and not numerous trade routes, where you can encounter hunters. You gain a reward for a risk then.

 

Just increasing profits would mean everyone will sail between two heavy fortified friendly ports, separated by an open water, where they don't encounter anyone. Everyone would be miserable doing it, but they would be doing it just to gain reals. Those reals would flood the market, increasing inflation, making old players rich. New players wouldn't be able to buy upgrades then for a few first months, as their price would skyrocket.

[toblerone]

16 hours ago, Louis Garneray said:

I remember the time I was able to make money selling tea and coffee (everybody was doing the heavy stuff). That time is long gone.

Just reverting back the clock about one year and half would be enough to give us a much better game. But we all know that all what came later was put into the game just to prepare the era of the DLCs. So it's certain that those good old times will never return. 😥

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by toblerone

[vazco]

3 hours ago, Intrepido said:

if the return of trade routes is the way to fix trading, why not.

Old trade routes could improve things, but there's a better way.

 

Imagine that every month, approx. 5 trade routes appear on the map, somewhere close to freetowns (eg. Santo domingo requires special good, produced only at Puerto de la Plata). They give a handy profit - eg. 3 mil reals for delivery of 4 Indiamans. Once you figure them out, you can profit on them, until trade hunters find them out as well. Once they do, hunters have something to do as well, and your trading became just a bit more risky. 

 

ps. those goods would have to be excluded from contracts, so that every nation can purchase them with the same chance. You would have additional reason to RvR, to get the port as well, as then you control the trade route, and it's easier for you to hunt traders.

[Gildr]

11 hours ago, vazco said:

 

Just increasing profit is not making things fun. It is fun when you can "win" proffits by either monitoring the market, or by sailing a risky, publicly available and not numerous trade routes, where you can encounter hunters. You gain a reward for a risk then.

 

Just increasing profits would mean everyone will sail between two heavy fortified friendly ports, separated by an open water, where they don't encounter anyone. Everyone would be miserable doing it, but they would be doing it just to gain reals. Those reals would flood the market, increasing inflation, making old players rich. New players wouldn't be able to buy upgrades then for a few first months, as their price would skyrocket.

This is exactly right. The "fun" in trading comes from:

1) Finding a trade good to exploit for the highest profit for the least time spent and the most acceptable risk. This is player calculation and genuine choice. It is hard.  That's what's fun about it. Clicking on a mission and delivering it over and over might be fun the first couple times, but after it becomes obvious there's no decisions or variety or intelligence required, it bores very quickly to the point Id almost rather not do it even if it makes me a butt load of money. Real difficult choice is fun. That's why lots of excel spreadsheet lovers do well in this game.

2) Putting skin in the game, ie being required to make a personal investment ... this makes it speculative, which makes it exciting. Because if it pays off then you got away with it and just got rich as well. It makes it significant. It makes it mean something. Cause the player believed in the trade enough to go for despite the risks, and then feels good about the reward when it comes. You have to stand to lose something significant for it to actually "matter." If you can get caught and killed carrying something very precious (like 1 mil reals in trade goods loaded in 3 indiamen with like 4 hours of time spent in a trade run) things suddenly become very interesting. That's fun. Actualy risk is fun. It's one of the main things agreed upon by long term players of this game.

The death of #2 may be the worse effect of the current system. Why EVER buy trade goods when you can get free cargo missions. All you have to do now is get 1 t brig and grind cargo missions. If you get sunk, all you ever stand to lose is that one shitty t brig. You don't even really lose time, cause at this point, i just run these missions afk knowing that even if I forget about it and let my ship sit on land for an hr and then get ganked, who gives a damn. That's not fun. That's a joke. Basically with this system, devs might as well go ahead and just remove trade goods all together, as well as lgvs and indiamen, because they are pretty much redundant (except for logistics runs I suppose, though why not still just use some t brigs for those too?).

Plus, and this is almost worse of all, as a privateer, I almost don't even care about tagging a player trader anymore. Cause it's a t brig that I know will be carrying cargo missions. Before it was always this exhilirating little surprise. Whaat is he carrying? And you know, whatever it is, the guy is gonna be hurt you sunk it, and so thats as good as anything. Now, he doesn't care if he dies. So that takes the fun out of killing him.

There's so much that's weak about this economy change I can't for the life of me figure out why they did it. For myself, the system was quite great before reset. There was lots of balance. You couldnt ever dominate a single trade good or route cause other players got onto it and competed and pushed you out. I got mad all the time. Which means I was having fun. I made some great hauls and made a lot of money, but I never got stupid rich off it. Cause everything was limited. What I made the most off of was actually capping AI traders for dubs and their loot, which I then stored up over time till I had enough to sail to a capital and make a load of reals. That was fun. Now all I get when I cap an ai trader is a couple hunderd pounds of peanut butter. Sad.

[Aquillas]

What disappeared too is trading of crafted items (cases, carriages, knees, barrels, etc.)

That was profitable and created a lot of trade movements, gathering resources and transporting crafted items.

Present economy is the Spitfire LFVb, supposed to be an improvement: clipped, clapped, cropped.