POLL: Make raw fish tradeable on AH?

[Admiral_Adama]

suggestionswishlist

Hi everyone!

This is just a quick poll to see where we are in the fishing/cooking economy, and where we should or could go. The question is simple:

SHOULD RAW FISH BE TRADEABLE ON THE AUCTION?

• YES
• NO
• DON’T CARE

Please vote, and leave a comment below with your opinions, suggestions and general take on this issue. I will start with my opinion here:

Since fishing and cooking was added to our beloved universe, the economy was put through a quite difficult period from which it is slowly recovering. Personally, I am enthusiastically congratulating MA for having pulled off this major change without too much turmoil, moreover, every balancing change/patch after the release has been quite thoughtful, leaving us, the players, now not only with another part of the economy (the buff part) in our own hands, but also giving us plots and free flats to enjoy and put to use.

BUT (yes, there is always one): Raw fish, the fruit of a fisher’s labour, remains non-tradeable on the auction. Sure, there is the P2P trade, and raw fish can be sold in shops, however, after the patch that made raw fish a required ingredient in buffed foods, the status of raw fish being a resource to be solely processed in a refiner to oils has changed into a core resource not unlike sweat, fruits, stones, or any mined and hunted resource. To be in line with this new status, and the principals of our universe’s economy, raw fish should be tradeable and, in turn, have a MU associated with it.

Apart from the status as ingredient for cooking, there are other reasons for making raw fish tradeable on the auction, reasons that would benefit everybody. Here are just a few:

(1) The avid fisher, just like a fruitwalker, sweater, crafter, hunter or miner, would be able to offer his or her catch to all players in our universe, without being confined to the few that attend the chat’s Trade channel.

(2) The avid cook, just like any crafter, would be able to access all resources for his or her tasty cooks on the auction, without relying on P2P trades or, worse, without the necessity of being a professional fisher. At this point, a freelance cook has no choice but to fish. Worse still, getting these rare catches for higher-end buffed food requires a cook to be a fisher with a solid professional standing. This starkly contrasts the crafting professions: A crafter does not need to be a hunter or miner, as all ingredients, at least in principle, are obtainable on auction.

(3) … a bit of a contentious point (please don’t be too harsh with me to bring this one up): The fees for trading another resource on the auction would go to MA and, this way, could eventually benefit everybody in some way, shape or form. As for any other item ingame, let the demand and supply determine the value of raw fish!

With that being off my chest, I’d love to hear your take on that issue. Thanks so much!

Good luck to everyone, and happy HOFing!

The Admiral

[San]

Leaving aside the obvious jokes about fish or dung in a market hall, it’s worth considering that certain things are prone to losing their market value extremely fast as soon as you offer them to the entire community to compete over with zero effort. The designers have some experience with that and likely their reasons for such a decision. The desire on the players’ side to make everything easier is natural, but in some cases you could be shooting yourself in the foot if the wish were granted.

[Admiral_Adama]

Hi San!

Thanks a bunch for your reply And I’d love to hear your jokes about dung and fish on the floor of the AH … jokes about sweat in bottles come to mind. Perhaps that’s why we cannot trade those, but only crates of sweat LOL

Jokes aside, yes, I do see your point. But how does this differ from, let’s say, raw oil or animal hide, both having the same base TT value as raw fish? It takes efforts, PEDs and time to mine or hunt these resources, as it does take efforts, PEDs and time to catch a fish. In fact, fishing is in each regard just like hunting or mining: Decay+ammo/spools/probes determine what one gets back. And just like almost all resources one “gets back”, raw fish won’t loose market value below its assigned TT. Why does it have a TT at all? Why is it not treated like sweat or fruit? Looking at it solely from this perspective, raw fish is in fact a proper resource, unlike sweat, stones and fruits that have almost zero TT and you get for free yet trade at a remarkable MU due to their demand. Sure, those basic cods and bass fishes will likely level close to zero MU, but what about swordfish and catfish, not to talk about the named fish varieties needed for special high-end buffs? And in regards to competing with “zero effort”, could that not be said about any resource traded? Not everybody fishes, in fact, after the initial hype, most people went back to their previous professions. After all, fishing is a low-cycle activity without any hope of catching a global, HOF or ATH.

The driving thought behind my OP was not to find a way to “make it easier” for the small fraction of player that fish and/or cook nowadays, but to treat a new ingame resource just like any other ingame resource, because it is used in the same way as any ingame resource. Sure, we are not involved in MA’s decision process and reasoning. Perhaps there is another use for raw fish planned for a future release that requires it to be non-tradeable. Apart from the fact that this possibility would amount to a totally new game-mechanics, the way raw fish integrates itself into the current economy is not different to any other resource.

Finally, to clarify a point I hinted at in my OP: Right after the release of fishing/cooking, raw fish did not need to be tradeable. Indeed, it served solely as a reasonable transition/placeholder item of an activity (fishing) to a refiner-obtained resource (fish oil) … who wants to fish bottles of fish oil, eh? As right after the release, buffed food required only fish oil, which was and is tradeable, there was no need to go the extra coding mile for raw fish in this regard. It made sense to be non-tradeable! But then came the patch that added raw fish varieties to each cooking recipe for buffed food. It is in this moment the status of raw fish changed from a placeholder to a proper resource. The speed with which the change/patch occurred indicates to me that this was not planned originally (just a guess on my part, but I do play long enough to be able to identify rushed patches to fix something). So, MA might not yet been fully aware of the changed status of raw fish.

Anyway, thanks again a lot for your reply. I very much appreciate!

The Admiral

[sexy]

No. Having the raw fish on the market will force down prices much more which will hurt new players the most. I’ll add more later.

[Xen]

Would begin a race to the bottom.

[San]

Thank you (or whichever AI crafted this reply; apologies if that’s not the case but sounds a lot like it) for the kind words. I can’t answer with any degree of detail because I don’t live on Calypso most of the time, only tried initial steps when fishing came out. The assumption above is all I can offer at this time. Due to this lack of knowledge, I have not answered the poll but decided to give a viewpoint which might not have been considered when creating the thread.

[Admiral_Adama]

Hi San!

Hehehe … I (a human being, soon 57 years old, living close to Le Mans, France) take your thank you.

It made me indeed smile a bit: Do I really read like an AI? Given the general stupidity of all AI models in existence, I should take it differently, certainly not positively (because I do not like any of the AI), I guess, but I won’t, because I do realize, with great horror and fear, that we live in times that are pretty blurred. I worked all my life close to the field (as a researcher, I investigated how the real human brain works for over two decades), and I can give you a little hint on how to distinguish true from fake: On images, it is easy, as AI and their naive LLMs generally do not understand, and possibly never will, human anatomy. In text, all LLM models will adapt to the modern way of communicating, that is short sentences that barely connect thematically over a paragraph in order to accommodate the short attention span of the mostly younger generation. Long sentences with connected and referencing subclauses are a hallmark of the ancients (humans, that is), as they require attention, memory beyond short term and intelligence both on the part of the writer and reader. All AI models of today have none of this, and never will as long as we stick to LLMs fed and trained on contemporary media. Moreover, AI models will be overly friendly to their “masters”, as they are programmed to be. This point is taken, but is also shared with the older generation of actual humans that grew up at a time where kindness was common among people. After all, back then, we lived in a high trust society, and sincere kindness and politeness towards your fellow humans got you a long way. Sneaky AI, stealing something which made us once truly human

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. To stimulate a response, garner some alternative points of view, and evoke a discussion about this subject was indeed my intention with the OP. The more, the better, as this might get the attention of MA, and perhaps evoke a discussion on their part that leads to improving the game in general, and the fishing/cooking addition in particular. After all, playing here since 2005, this is one of the most consequential changes to our beloved universe, ranking second only to the CE2 update back in 2008. So, thank you for taking part in this, and voicing your point of view. This is very much appreciated!

Personally, although the OP might suggest otherwise, I am landing on neither side of the issue. Yes, I do love fishing, as I see it as the “great equalizer” in our universe. Let me explain: Each other profession lives on a spectrum between Noobs and Uebers, with the latter cycling PEDs and, hence, determining the market with bulk offers. This is bad for the Noobs, as competing with that is nearly impossible. With fishing, MA did something outrageous: It is more like sweating or fruit walking, but provides resources that are very important downstream for the economy in the form of buffs for hunters and, to a lesser extent, miners. If, for example, you angle as Noob with an A-01, or an “Ueber” with an A-10, you will get about the same number of raw fish in a certain period. In this sense it is like sweating: Sweat level 1 or 100 does not matter, you will get about the same per time invested. That means, the distinction between Noob and Ueber disappears, and both sides of the spectrum, and everything in between, have a chance to partake in the market, if it would be opened to raw fish, equally. Looking at it this way, I even think that “Noobs”, a.k.a. new players, will have a greater chance, because they could offer their catch to everybody. While the core assumption that prices for raw fish will drop (and be bad for new players) once it is tradeable would be correct if fishing as professional activity would live on the aforementioned spectrum, I challenge this assumption for the sole reason that fishing, evidently so, does not live on this spectrum.

Anyway, I will leave it at that. Again, thanks for participating in the discussion. Each opinion on the issue counts, and hopefully MA will take notes and make a decision. After all, we, the players, don’t know anything about HQ’s decision process and rational behind certain decisions. Maybe there is something else planned for raw fish? We simply don’t know. But from the current status of things, the role and handling of raw fish, and its significant exposure to the economy in regards to buff generation, is quite a baffling one to me.

Hehehe, and to finish off, this reply here was written by a human, sitting in the library of a little mansion deep in a forest close to Le Mans, France. Cats playing in the background, preparing for another day of heat, as are the two goats, rabbits, geese, ducks and chicken. LOL, would an AI refer to the possession of animals under blistering heat, while the subject of discussion is the economy of fishing in a virtual reality? Would be a bit strange, now wouldn’t it?

The Admiral

[Admiral_Adama]

Hi Xen!

Thanks for your post, and for participating in the discussion. This is very much appreciated, as it was the driving intention of my OP.

With that being said, you would be correct, if, and only if, one views the activity of fishing like any other activity, such as hunting, mining or crafting. As I mentioned in my reply to San, these latter activities live on a spectrum between Noob and Ueber. Those Uebers, with bulk offers, will largely control the market and drive down (sometimes also up) prices. But fishing does not live on this spectrum. Each fishing attempt gives one catch of raw fish, irrespective if one uses noob gear (for example an A-01) or ueber gear (an A-10). Moreover, the time per catch is about the same, as one has to finish the minigame. I am an avid fisher, loving it as relaxation between hunting sessions, and I do see no difference between the A-01 and the now maxxed A-04 in the types and number of raw fish I catch. So, fishing is an equalizing activity (at least from what I can judge at the moment) delivering about the same loot (in regards to raw fish) to new players and Uebers per time invested. Exposing raw fish to the market would then, quite opposite to the other activities, help new players.

But yes, prices would drop initially, as many fishers likely have stacks upon stacks in their inventory due to the hassles in trading raw fish (trade channel and direct P2P trades are the only options at this point), or the expenses involved in using them (for cooking, one needs to have a flat, with the free flats provided my MA in the last update helping a bit, and a cooking station). But after the initial devaluing of raw fish due to over-supply, the market will settle. Look at spool cells as an example for that: The initial hype of the fishing release caused many to baitfish, create spool cells, and offer them on the market. The MU dropped rapidly, and reached 150% at the bottom. With the hype now gone, and many moving on (after all, fishing is a low-cycle activity), spool cells become now sparser, and the MU (as of yesterday) seems to settle around 200%. In regards to raw fish, I do not see a difference.

Finally, let us ask one glaring question: How does a new player (or any player for that matter) know what the value of a raw fish really is? There is nothing to go by, except the word agreed upon during P2P trades. Now, I do watch the trade channel for raw fish and AH for buffed food regularly, and from what I see, the prices offered for certain fishes are, shall we say, pretty low if one considers the prices for buffed food it creates. Sure, a low/no-depo and/or new player might be happy with 10 PEC a piece (1k% MU sounds nice, doesn’t it), but for some varieties, the real price should easily be more like 1 PED (10k% MU!) a piece, given the price of the buffed food it is used for. The P2P trades right now are just a smaller, more personal version of AH trades, thus more prone to manipulation that are generally of disadvantage to new and unexperienced players. Many of us will have a story to tell from our early years as noobs in this regard, and we all know about the re-seller sc*ms on the sweat market before one could trade it on the auction.

Again, I do not land on either side of the argument, but wanted to stimulate a discussion about the issue, and see how people feel about the different handling of raw fish as a core resource in the economy of our beloved universe. To me personally, it does not make sense.

Anyway, I will leave it at that. Thanks again for your time, and your participation in the discussion. Each take on the issue is very much appreciated!

The Admiral

[Jade_Fuctone]

i may be in the minority here, but I like it as is. If I want to sell the fish I catch, I hit Port Atlantis and sell them. If I want to auction them, I can easily turn them into oil and do so. Sure I have hundreds of lower value fish in storage but that just encourages me to either fish more, or buy some scraps to do the conversion. This likely is helping keep fish scraps at a stable MU.

This may be in part nostalgia. When I started playing there was no universal trade chat and people often bought and sold stuff not worth the auction fees on the streets of PA, Twins, and the old sweat camp. I broke into this game slinging ME on the square of the old PA and this reminds me very much of those times.

[Admiral_Adama]

Yes absolutely, Jade, I totally get your point and nostalgia! Same for me: I started playing in 2005 (first avatar was Lonestar, and does not exist anymore), and I do fondly remember the times on the market of PA. Filled with people, chats, trades and just plain old fun socialising. Spontaneous parties and team hunts, sweat and swunt events, all to incredible tunes and music. Gosh, I do miss those times …

… So yes, I do understand your take on that. As I wrote before, I fall on neither side of the issue. I fish a lot, and do not sell anything because I want to cook myself. The principal problem for me is the different handling of raw fish as a core resource. As that, it is (after the patch that nerfed the cooking recipes) no longer different to any other core resource ingame, so it should be treated as such (and be tradeable on the AH), for the sole reason of consistency in the game mechanics. Yes, if MA wants to return to P2P trades, which was a big deal back then due to its social component, then yes please, but do it for all and everything resource-wise ingame. Perhaps then towns like PA and Twin Peaks will see a resurgence of people just standing on the markets and offering their catches and goods … just like it was back then in the good days. But for the time being, it is half-measured and kind off breaking the coherence of the economy we came accustomed to since those ancient times.

But then, since my original post and poll, I read a lot here in the forum and elsewhere in regards to issues and the economy of pills and buffed food. It seems (and this is just a feeling I get from various posts) that MA tries to get people off the reliance on pills and buffs. This would make sense in some ways, and be a return to the times we - the older players - miss so much. Back then, there were no pills, and buffs were rather rare and something to work towards as a reward. I too prefer this sentiment, if it is indeed MA’s intention. And yes, in this sense, keeping raw fish and, thus, buffed food gated behind some form off “complication” (one cannot just purchase rarer, and therefore far more expensive, ingredients off the AH) would be a way to achieve the return to some sanity. But then we don’t know the overall direction, and can only guess. The evidence at hand so far suggests that it is a mere oversight or incomplete implementation. This is why I put the poll out there, to garner different viewpoints. Perhaps MA is listening, and takes action to bring the game in regards to fishing/cooking and buffs out of the limbo it is in.

Anyway, thanks a big bunch for your comment! I certainly appreciate!

The Admiral