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For those who don't read the changelog: Traders no longer get guild points from simply selling items at the market. They can now ask one of their guild leaders for tasks.

Please report any bugs or potential exploits!

Does that mean we can buy stuff from market without Rec points?

Yep.

Now that they no longer gain you guild points from selling things, will the costs for the Coalition Mine and Coalition Tree Reserve passes be reduced?

That's a good question.

Having done a few tasks, I have a few issues with them. (also found a few bugs but I reported those already)

First of all, I love the idea behind them. They are a great incentive for traders to meet and pay other players to gather things and work together with them.

Unfortunately the rewards for the tasks are beyond pitiful for a higher ranked trader like myself. 100 Riln and 20 GP feel like nothing, seeing how I need 6500 points to rank up and the logging and mining permits cost 2500 and 6000 respectively.
Added to that is the difficulty of the tasks. The first one I got involved 13 deer meat. Being a trader, not a hunter, I paid another player to gather them for me, which took that player about an hour. The next task involved 20 bloodwort. It took 2 players almost 3 hours to gather that for me. For some of the other tasks the objective is just as time consuming. 26 walnut flitches, 12 cougar pelts and so on. Some tasks are almost impossible, like the one involving 18 bison pelts. There are only a select few players who can actually handle a bison and for the 100 riln and 20 GP I would get at the end (on top of the income from selling the pelts, of course) I do not believe I could offer any of them enough money to do something as tedious as that and still make a profit.

The last task I completed involed 18 bars of steel. It took me about 15 minutes to complete but only because I already had both the iron and the coal in stock. I got the normal selling price for the steel and 100 riln / 20 GP on top. Had I made anything out of the bars, I would have made significantly more money, not to mention the skillgain. (I would also have made about 108 GP from selling the steel in the old system).

So, for now I would really like the tasks to scale with the time/effort required to do them, 100 Riln, 20 GP might be great for a new trader selling 5 copper bars on the requested market but for a higher ranked one it is not worth even askign for a task.

I also think the herb-selling tasks should be removed or made a lot more rare. There are already plenty of guilds who do herb gathering tasks and I doubt the regrowth system can keep up with more demand. When I got a second task for bloodwort I could not get any of that herb and no player I asked could find any.

Well maybe they'll make an exception for you guys, but I asked for similar compensation when killing the tougher creatures, and was adamantly denied.

tougher creatures is different because it scales to your skill. getting 20 maple logs and bringing them back and storing them for 20GP isn't worth it, i'd rather just sell and abandon the abilities.

Guess who did another task? This trader right here.

Task this time involved bringing 10 polearms to Irwin (the mercenary guy in the coalition). I liked the task very much but stupid as I am I actually went and made 8 polearms to add to the 2 I already had. Time spent was about 2:30h. Grabbing my wagon, mule and polearms I went over. I turned in the first one, and for some reason Irwin only wanted 6 more. I guess he cannot count. BUGed it and gave him 6 more.

Reward: 1125 Riln, 50 guild points.

In hindsight, I could have just bought the polearms on the coalition outpost for 80 riln a piece.

Edit: turns out I cannot give them coalition equipment.

Just to clarify: For the "bring Irwin weapons" tasks, you can give him weapons bought or scavenged, as long as they're not from the Coalition itself. Buy from NPC shops, buy from players, loot them from critters, whatever you want. As long as you get those weapons to Irwin, and they're not in terrible shape.

Some other tips for the "bring commodities to a customer" tasks:

- Don't sell everything the instant you acquire it. Save up a little stockpile of stuff for optimal business opportunities (i.e. these tasks).
- For gathering bars of metal, you don't have to mine them. Buy or loot items made of that type of metal, toss them in the furnace, and smelt them down. Boom, metal bars!
- Don't be afraid to ask others for help. Most people are saps (heh heh) and will help you out for free, or for less than market value of the items.
- Coordinate with other traders (or anyone who gathers commodities, really). If they're selling a huge amount of copper, for instance, ask them if you can buy some of it off of them. If they're selling a lot, chances are they can still make a little more selling to you than they would selling those last few pieces to the market at the reduced price due to flooding. If you're the one doing the selling, let other traders know.
- Watch the markets. Every now and then you can find piles of something someone sold recently, and you can buy some at a discount price due to the flooding of the market. Pick up a few for a little stockpile that you can use for tasks. You also might find goods there that you're not able to produce or gather on your own, like animal pelts or metals that are in mines too difficult for you to work on your own.

Tip for everyone ELSE to help out traders:
- Sell your friggin stuff at the market! Stop hoarding it or donating it/giving it away! You're ruining the economy!

We don't expect traders to gather/produce everything that's required for these tasks on their own. We want you to, you know, trade for things sometimes. Feature coming soon to help facilitate that: Markets spawning items in specific towns, i.e. Shadgard will spontaneously produce copper, pine, bison pelts, etc. in its market.

I only hoard pelts as they are my pelts and I need them. Also Eve won't sell pelts as making profit from killing animals is bad, mmkay?

Greedy hoarder hippie!

I agree with Rias on this one, both on his recent comment and the issue of ruining the economy. All of my characters have visited the market and sold something. The only reason Zafyr hoards gems is because I want a gem-studded weapon, and am keeping options open for what, exactly, gets put into the weapon.

Do expect a treasure trove of stuff (mostly herbs, and a few metal bars) to appear in either Mistral or Shadgard's market sometime soon, though. Zafyr needs more funding.

Often, I sell to the underground market. Sorry Traders! But I do sell some of the stuff I steal to other markets. It really just depends on what I'm closest to at the time. I probably pawn more things than I do sell commodities at a market.

Necro-Bump!

I've noticed it seems significantly more difficult for Traders to gain guild ranks than back in "the old days" and I kinda feel bad for them. It used to be rather easy to just sell my stuff and get a bunch of points.

I had a thought. Most guilds have two ways you earn points these days. Tasks, and successfully attacking something of a decent challenge. What if Traders were able to earn a small number of points for actually finishing something, like a weapon, piece of armor, a carving, or a faceted or polished gem, or a piece of jewelry?

Considering all the time it takes to gather materials (or riln spent buying them) forge/carve/polish or cut said material. I don't think this would be an unreasonable addition to gld point accrual along with tasks. Actually completing a finished project could be a nice small reward.

You could even have this based on quality, soooo for example. Complete a poor quality sword, you earn 1 point. Complete a superior sword, you earn 3-10 points. Complete a masterful sword? 5-25 points! Woot! This could serve as a reward/motivation for people who choose to level up their crafting skills?

Ardor wrote:Now that they no longer gain you guild points from selling things, will the costs for the Coalition Mine and Coalition Tree Reserve passes be reduced?

I just noticed this post as well and thought I'd add my +1 to this request.

I don't think this ever happened, but it'd be nice if our staffers could look at these costs and perhaps lower the ticket costs a bit accordingly. I don't think these services even get used anymore due to how much slower it is now to get gld points. Could be wrong, of course.

Before I'm pretty sure the cost was balanced based on that 10% rate of what someone could possibly earn in the special mine, or the logging area. Things are different now, that's for sure.

Thanks.