Throwing my two cents to the issue on the table, I think that fishing and cooking are brilliant additions to our universe, as they put another aspect of the economy - the buffs - into the hand of players.
BUT (a rather fat BUT), with that being said, I also cannot disagree with the principals of the original post. The problem is the sudden disappearance of pills, and the lack of balance in their replacement by buffed food. The food container shortage due to lack of BP drops, the super-rare fish varieties needed to produce recently buffed food, the lack of reasonably priced core resources (such as copper or transgen fruits) … these are all issues that amplified, and continue to cause severe, problems in the transition to this new exciting part of the economy. Even worse still, what about Ark, Cyrene, Toulan? No fishing, no cooking, no pills from strongboxes resulting in a palpable shortage of buffs. Who wants to transport PvP-lootable buffed food there to supply the players? Yes, one can buy said food on the AH, and pay for their transfer … but the expenses compound and more and more players will stay away. Just imagine, 1h autoloot with a TT pill was 50 PEC, now - if one is lucky - one can purchase the Sucker Filet for at least 10x that price plus a 2 PED min fee for a transfer if you are on one of the not-fising-(yet?) planets. This is not sustainable!
The bottom line, the phasing out of pills should have been done gradually to avoid this shock to the players, the turmoil in the economy, and to give everybody a bit of buffer-time to adapt. Certainly it is too late now, but MA can still make some changes to ease it for the players:
(1) Make buffed food non-lootable in PvP! This will stimulate the transfer of said food between planets, and help those on not-fising-(yet?) planets to get their daily buffs!
(2) Balance BP drop rates, such as for food containers, to eliminate bottlenecks in the cooking of buffed food. Yes, the principals of the system work (AH and several shops offer a constant supply of buffed food), but the prices (when compared to the now gone basic pills from Strongboxes) are horrendous due to the lack of viable competition.
(3) MAKE FISH TRADEABLE!
Personally, I don’t understand the reason why raw fish is not tradeable on the AH. It is like any other core resource in the game obtained by hunting or mining. I don’t think there is a lack of raw fish (as mentioned in the original post). Myself, I sit on 20k raw fish in my storage that I can’t move or offer (unless I spam the Trade chat around PA like a second-hand car salesman). I am sure that many others share the same problem. Vice versa, currently, to be a supply-generating professional cook, one either needs to know professional fishers for P2P trades, or be a professional fisher oneself, to get that juicy supply of fish for the cook. This is not a sustainable model, and does not make any sense in the general context of the economy: Normal professional crafters do not need to be miners and hunters to get their resources, as all of these are, in principle, traded on the AH.
Anyway, this is my rant on the issue. It is too late to go back, as the damage is done. But adjustments/changes to ease the transition can - and should - be done. I’d be glad to hear your opinions on the suggestions above … and perhaps MA is listening as well, and takes notes of what people have to say.
Cheers for the original post to bring up an issue that concerns many of us!
The Admiral
