TLDR: The poster suggests that the game's trading system needs improvement to cater to a neglected subset of players who are only interested in trading. The current market system has several problems such as an unintuitive interface, small buy/sell order limits, limited sorting options, and a lack of features for custom orders. The poster suggests adding robust sorting options, increasing order limits, adding custom order features, and a more intuitive interface to make the market more appealing to traders. Additionally, they suggest adding features such as buy order tracking, claiming recipes, delivery options, and more. Improving the trading system would not only benefit traders but also attract more players to the world by providing juicy targets and creating a cycle of trade and protection.
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There is a currently neglected subset of players that I think needs some attention, that if catered to for one solid patch would truly energize the entire population of the game indirectly. Traders.
In every MMO I have played there exists a healthy number of players that ONLY want to trade. They want to see just how much wealth they can accumulate. They don't want to fight, they don't want to participate in wars, they don't care about any of that. The good traders will very much pay attention to these things, because these things mean increased profits. Mortal's clunky market system does not give serious traders the tools to do this.
Having a thriving trader population would bring juicy targets into the world who are carrying with them valuables from city to city. More players would be excited about random roams between cities, more players doing this would entice traders to convince friends or hire mercenary body guards to protect their trades. The cycle goes on and on.
- The way that the market is displayed to a would-be customer is absolutely atrocious. You need only look at EveOnlines market place to get all the inspiration that you need. Eve's market is used in schools to teach students how markets work. Use this resource for inspiration. There will need to be some tweaks here and there, due to varying item quality, durability, weight etc, but I am confident that with a couple hours of brain-storming the SV team could come up with an intuitive and easy to use interface that would breath life into Nave's market system.
- The buy order / sell order limit is too small. This might be due to the way the market is displayed, because if you simply increased the number of buy/sell orders players could put up now, it would flood the market with garbage that isn't easily filtered, adding to the problem. Clean up the way it is displayed and then increase the starting order limits. Also add more skills that further increase this, reduce market fees, allow margin trading etc.
- Sorting options need to be ROBUST. Examples of possible sorting conditions should include:
*** Any weapons that require less than 'X' strength
*** Any set of armor that weighs less than 'X' but has blunt protection greater than 'Y'
*** Any 2H club that contains 'tindremic messing' in the ingredients
*** Show only Excellent quality or greater weapons/armor
*** Show buy orders for Granum within 'X' meters of me
- Buy orders should be able to be placed for custom weapons and armor and the buy order creation screen for these might even look like the crafting menu does. You would put together exactly what you want and then put a commission price. Crafters can then look at this menu and if they have the pre-requisite skills, should be able to see how much material that recipe would take them to craft. You should be able to place a buy order for 20 two handed greatswords made of steel and ironwood with ironwool grip. The buy order should indicate the weight of the item or set once crafted as well as a total weight for the entire buy order.
- Placing buy orders for armor should be by the set OR by individual piece. An armor crafter could see that a customer wants a Tindremic Knight Helm and Sleeves made of XY at so and so sliders, A Draco Torso made of blah blah blah, and a pair of Kallardian Norse leggings made of full grain leather.
- A crafter should be able to look at the list of buy orders, find one they want and click "Take recipe." This puts a physical document in their inventory that they can then carry to a crafting table and use at the table with ease to quickly craft exactly what the customer wants. Instead of a cluttered mess of armor pieces and weapons, they might instead get a bundle named "DioclesID" (this will also be the name assigned to any crafted items). They might only want to use the recipe 5 times. They can then carry these crafted bundles, that are still tied to the claimed buy order, back to the market and easily fulfill 5 of the 20 requested swords for instance.
- On the market screen, it should show any would-be crafters the number of times a buy order has been claimed and how long ago. This might let them know that they would likely be too late to fulfill this order, or maybe someone claimed it and didn't have the necessary resources to complete it (if it was claimed a long time ago for instance). Or if the buy order is for 1000 swords, maybe they decide there will likely be plenty of the buy order left even though 20 other players have taken the recipe.
- Should a crafter change their mind about fulfilling a buy order, they should obviously be able to "open" the crafted bundle, turning it into the crafted and useable items.
- Armor sets, or weapon orders containing more than 1 weapon, should have an option (maybe a check box) that indicates if they want it to be delivered in a bag or not. If this is checked, the recipe simply requires X more leather (come up with some amount of leather that makes sense per bag required) or utilizes empty bags in the crafters inventory.
- Crafters can also just claim buy orders to obtain the recipe document. These can be used to efficiently craft sets, weapons etc for repeat customers and guild mates. These recipe documents should have informative tool tips and not just the word "recipe." For example "DioclesID, Recipe for an armor set, Helmet: Blah blah, Torso: Blah Blah, etc etc. It should also indicate what resources and how many you need to craft it.
- Crafted bundles should be placeable in horse bags. This is critical to weaving this whole system into a thriving market between cities.
To sum it all up I will lay out a potential scenario:
I am in Mohki and decide to check the market for buy orders because I need to make some gold. I see someone wants to buy 100 sets of bagged armor made of steel and silk named BaktiDefenseForce for 55 gold per set. The buy order indicates that each of these sets weighs 24.35. I know my horse can carry about 600kg, so I crunch the numbers and calculate that I can carry 24 sets. My brother who is an armor crafter with those skills is online so I ask him to meet me at the armor crafter table in 5 minutes.
I grab the recipe from the market screen and multiply 24 by the indicated material cost of the armor set. I know I have plenty of steel and leather in the bank, but I don't have any silk. I grab enough silk off the market, head towards the armor crafting table, and swing by the bank to grab the steel and leather on the way.
Upon arriving at the armor crafting table, I trade the materials and recipe to my brother, he opens the crafting menu and right clicks the recipe. It pops up an input asking for how many he wants to craft in this bundle? He types in 24 and hits enter. The crafting screen now shows a ghost image of a "crafted bundle" consisting of a bunch of armor in a bundle of leather straps and the like (nice). Under the image, it shows a description of what he is crafting and how much it will weigh. He clicks "Craft" and a crafted bundle named BaktiDefenseForce is added to his inventory that weighs 584.4 kg. He hovers his mouse over the bundle and the tool tip says that it contains 24 sets of armor and that he can Shift+Click to Unpack Bundle. He shift clicks and a familiar stack splitting input pops up with an additional button labeled "Unpack All.". He types in 1 and hits enter. A bag containing a full set of the armor is added to his inventory and the Crafted Bundle tool tip now indicates that it contains 23 sets of armor. He trades the bundle back to me and says "Crafters tax, thanks bro." The trade window shows me he is trading me a Crafting Bundle and when I hover my mouse it shows what it contains. I consider killing him where he stands, but he did just help me with this trade..
I then throw the bundle in my horse bags (it now weighs 560.05) and ride to Bakti. Upon arriving I go straight to the market and navigate to the buy order for the armor sets. I see that during my trip the order had been partially fulfilled and the buy order was now for 59 sets. I quickly click the illuminated fulfill button (the other buy order's fulfill buttons were greyed out, since I didn't have their requisite items/bundles in my inventory). An input pops up asking me for a quantity in addition to a button "All available." I click the 'All Available' button and the bundle disappears from my horse's bags and 1265 gold is added to my inventory.
I want to buy a nice sword. I know my strength attribute isn't going to change so I decide to narrow my search using that. I select swords, located in Bakti, type in 92 for my max strength and 2.5kg for max weight, The list automatically updates below as I make these sorting changes but I want to sort the results my way. The default sorting was showing me the cheapest swords I could get that met that criteria, but I want a nice blade. I click to sort by slashing damage in descending order, which brings the creme of the crop to the top of the list... Hmmmm Cronite blade it is.
//
Thanks for reading!
//
There is a currently neglected subset of players that I think needs some attention, that if catered to for one solid patch would truly energize the entire population of the game indirectly. Traders.
In every MMO I have played there exists a healthy number of players that ONLY want to trade. They want to see just how much wealth they can accumulate. They don't want to fight, they don't want to participate in wars, they don't care about any of that. The good traders will very much pay attention to these things, because these things mean increased profits. Mortal's clunky market system does not give serious traders the tools to do this.
Having a thriving trader population would bring juicy targets into the world who are carrying with them valuables from city to city. More players would be excited about random roams between cities, more players doing this would entice traders to convince friends or hire mercenary body guards to protect their trades. The cycle goes on and on.
- The way that the market is displayed to a would-be customer is absolutely atrocious. You need only look at EveOnlines market place to get all the inspiration that you need. Eve's market is used in schools to teach students how markets work. Use this resource for inspiration. There will need to be some tweaks here and there, due to varying item quality, durability, weight etc, but I am confident that with a couple hours of brain-storming the SV team could come up with an intuitive and easy to use interface that would breath life into Nave's market system.
- The buy order / sell order limit is too small. This might be due to the way the market is displayed, because if you simply increased the number of buy/sell orders players could put up now, it would flood the market with garbage that isn't easily filtered, adding to the problem. Clean up the way it is displayed and then increase the starting order limits. Also add more skills that further increase this, reduce market fees, allow margin trading etc.
- Sorting options need to be ROBUST. Examples of possible sorting conditions should include:
*** Any weapons that require less than 'X' strength
*** Any set of armor that weighs less than 'X' but has blunt protection greater than 'Y'
*** Any 2H club that contains 'tindremic messing' in the ingredients
*** Show only Excellent quality or greater weapons/armor
*** Show buy orders for Granum within 'X' meters of me
- Buy orders should be able to be placed for custom weapons and armor and the buy order creation screen for these might even look like the crafting menu does. You would put together exactly what you want and then put a commission price. Crafters can then look at this menu and if they have the pre-requisite skills, should be able to see how much material that recipe would take them to craft. You should be able to place a buy order for 20 two handed greatswords made of steel and ironwood with ironwool grip. The buy order should indicate the weight of the item or set once crafted as well as a total weight for the entire buy order.
- Placing buy orders for armor should be by the set OR by individual piece. An armor crafter could see that a customer wants a Tindremic Knight Helm and Sleeves made of XY at so and so sliders, A Draco Torso made of blah blah blah, and a pair of Kallardian Norse leggings made of full grain leather.
- A crafter should be able to look at the list of buy orders, find one they want and click "Take recipe." This puts a physical document in their inventory that they can then carry to a crafting table and use at the table with ease to quickly craft exactly what the customer wants. Instead of a cluttered mess of armor pieces and weapons, they might instead get a bundle named "DioclesID" (this will also be the name assigned to any crafted items). They might only want to use the recipe 5 times. They can then carry these crafted bundles, that are still tied to the claimed buy order, back to the market and easily fulfill 5 of the 20 requested swords for instance.
- On the market screen, it should show any would-be crafters the number of times a buy order has been claimed and how long ago. This might let them know that they would likely be too late to fulfill this order, or maybe someone claimed it and didn't have the necessary resources to complete it (if it was claimed a long time ago for instance). Or if the buy order is for 1000 swords, maybe they decide there will likely be plenty of the buy order left even though 20 other players have taken the recipe.
- Should a crafter change their mind about fulfilling a buy order, they should obviously be able to "open" the crafted bundle, turning it into the crafted and useable items.
- Armor sets, or weapon orders containing more than 1 weapon, should have an option (maybe a check box) that indicates if they want it to be delivered in a bag or not. If this is checked, the recipe simply requires X more leather (come up with some amount of leather that makes sense per bag required) or utilizes empty bags in the crafters inventory.
- Crafters can also just claim buy orders to obtain the recipe document. These can be used to efficiently craft sets, weapons etc for repeat customers and guild mates. These recipe documents should have informative tool tips and not just the word "recipe." For example "DioclesID, Recipe for an armor set, Helmet: Blah blah, Torso: Blah Blah, etc etc. It should also indicate what resources and how many you need to craft it.
- Crafted bundles should be placeable in horse bags. This is critical to weaving this whole system into a thriving market between cities.
To sum it all up I will lay out a potential scenario:
I am in Mohki and decide to check the market for buy orders because I need to make some gold. I see someone wants to buy 100 sets of bagged armor made of steel and silk named BaktiDefenseForce for 55 gold per set. The buy order indicates that each of these sets weighs 24.35. I know my horse can carry about 600kg, so I crunch the numbers and calculate that I can carry 24 sets. My brother who is an armor crafter with those skills is online so I ask him to meet me at the armor crafter table in 5 minutes.
I grab the recipe from the market screen and multiply 24 by the indicated material cost of the armor set. I know I have plenty of steel and leather in the bank, but I don't have any silk. I grab enough silk off the market, head towards the armor crafting table, and swing by the bank to grab the steel and leather on the way.
Upon arriving at the armor crafting table, I trade the materials and recipe to my brother, he opens the crafting menu and right clicks the recipe. It pops up an input asking for how many he wants to craft in this bundle? He types in 24 and hits enter. The crafting screen now shows a ghost image of a "crafted bundle" consisting of a bunch of armor in a bundle of leather straps and the like (nice). Under the image, it shows a description of what he is crafting and how much it will weigh. He clicks "Craft" and a crafted bundle named BaktiDefenseForce is added to his inventory that weighs 584.4 kg. He hovers his mouse over the bundle and the tool tip says that it contains 24 sets of armor and that he can Shift+Click to Unpack Bundle. He shift clicks and a familiar stack splitting input pops up with an additional button labeled "Unpack All.". He types in 1 and hits enter. A bag containing a full set of the armor is added to his inventory and the Crafted Bundle tool tip now indicates that it contains 23 sets of armor. He trades the bundle back to me and says "Crafters tax, thanks bro." The trade window shows me he is trading me a Crafting Bundle and when I hover my mouse it shows what it contains. I consider killing him where he stands, but he did just help me with this trade..
I then throw the bundle in my horse bags (it now weighs 560.05) and ride to Bakti. Upon arriving I go straight to the market and navigate to the buy order for the armor sets. I see that during my trip the order had been partially fulfilled and the buy order was now for 59 sets. I quickly click the illuminated fulfill button (the other buy order's fulfill buttons were greyed out, since I didn't have their requisite items/bundles in my inventory). An input pops up asking me for a quantity in addition to a button "All available." I click the 'All Available' button and the bundle disappears from my horse's bags and 1265 gold is added to my inventory.
I want to buy a nice sword. I know my strength attribute isn't going to change so I decide to narrow my search using that. I select swords, located in Bakti, type in 92 for my max strength and 2.5kg for max weight, The list automatically updates below as I make these sorting changes but I want to sort the results my way. The default sorting was showing me the cheapest swords I could get that met that criteria, but I want a nice blade. I click to sort by slashing damage in descending order, which brings the creme of the crop to the top of the list... Hmmmm Cronite blade it is.
//
Thanks for reading!
Last edited:
huh? Petty? Care to expound?
