Society Tasks and Provisioners

[Ceruline]

Here's my latest in what is starting to become a series of daily essays on the tradeskill changes, specifically as they apply to provisioners. In my defense, the changes are quite drastic, and hence introduce a lot of issues. I'm actually very much in favor of the changes, especially as the tweaks have trickled in over the past few days.It's been stated that the payout for society tasks is intended to provide a 20% profit margin. (I haven't checked since the most recent Test patch, but it seemed as if the system was still incorrectly calculating costs for the purposes of sellbacks and task payouts prior to then.)I think that in conjunction with the consumable fuel price decreases that this will introduce a problem with the design of provisioner workshop tasks. Since the monetary cost of the recipes has gone down, the net profit is now going to be out of line with the amount of work required to make the recipe for that tier.I'm going to pull a relatively complex T3 recipe out as an example "Golden Saucer". This is a five combine recipe, and should have higher cost than most (And hence slightly higher net reward).Here is the "shopping list" for the recipe:Blue Succulent x 1 (Harvest)Rye x 1 (Harvest)Fuel x 5 x 14c = 70c (Buy)Yeast x 2 x 6c = 12c (Buy)Liquid x 2 x 6c = 12c (Buy)Hops x 1 x 6c = 6c (Buy)Total monetary cost = 1s even. (Picked the recipe at random, and got lucky that the numbers work out so well)Total cost for a stack of 10 - 10s even20% profit = 2s.So for a task which takes 50 combines to complete (Likely in excess of an hours time when you factor in harvest times) a level 20-30 crafter is going to make 2s profit.As a character on the Isle of refuge can relatively easily come up with a 2s profit given an hour of adventuring time, I think it is probably apparent that this isn't sufficient reward for the time spent.Unfortunately, society tasks are complicated because the payout they provide can set price floors for both finished items and raw resources if they're set too high. When the cost per item is extremely low, as it is now for provisioner goods (A very good thing, in spite of the problems it introduces to these tasks) an increase in gross monetary reward is even more likely to make society tasks more attractive than selling to the market.Say that the payout was adjusted to provide a 30s gross profit (I believe this is still less than a wholesaler task of the same tier). Well, now a provisioner can see a 3s per unit profit on a 1s good... They'll obviously be unwilling to sell it for anything less than 4s on the market. Depending on the server economy, this may or may not be above established prices - but it's just another factor which keeps prices for provisions high.I think that some consideration needs to be given to a reward structure of cost + nonmonetary award for completion of society tasks (Either just for provisioners, or for crafters as a whole, though the problem here is more provisioner specific)Given that a large factor affecting current provisions prices is resource scarcity, an ideal nonmonetary reward may be resources. (This system in effect ends up being relatively similar to the one Kwoung suggests in another thread, in that it tries to fully repay the costs of doing the task, including resources and subcomponents. It's different in that it's aim is to reimburse after the fact, rather than giving resources up front, and that it's overall goal is to reward the crafter with resources rather than to enable skill grinding at no cost).Example:The above tier 3 task is completed. The total costs to the crafter were 10s, and 20 units of harvestables.The award would therefore be 10s, 10 units of Blue Succulent, 10 units of Rye, and 20 units of a T3 resource of the crafters choice (Which could not be used for a wholesaler quest, obviously.)Effects of such a reward system:Removes any task based price floor in the general market.Removes any alternate use for cuisine resources other than selling to the public (Resources used in the recipe are a wash as they are "refunded" upon completion.)Introduces a reliable source for specific needed resources. Instead of running around commons for several hours hoping to find the (1/<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />*(harvest success rate)/3 shrubberies needed to accumulate 20 units of wheat, a provisioner knows that they can acquire it through a task.Gives provisioners a desireable award for completing society tasks that will actually serve to decrease market prices.Disadvantages:Will, to a certain extent, dampen demand for specific resources on the market. This will likely only result in a price decrease, because at a certain point it is worth more to a provisioner to instantly buy the resource than to spend the time earning it via a task.This is only one proposed solution. The primary points of emphasis I would like to make apart from the example solution are that:1. Provisioners are not adequately rewarded for their effor under the 20% profit design goal for society tasks and the reduced consumable fuel costs.2. Raising the monetary profit for such tasks is likely to introduce either price floors or supply problems, as tasks become more lucrative than selling to the public. Hence, the ideal solution is something which gives provisioners something desireable for the time invested in task completion, yet which is not directly translatable into a large monetary profit.