First of all, for those who aren't familiar, here's a very simple breakdown of how resources and trading work:
- Resources and Trading:
Resources:
Lands have resources. Lands build Resource Sites to collect 100,000 ryo from each resource site each month.
Resource levels vary from 0 to 5.
One resource site per level.
You can collect from to 3 resource sites if you have at least level 3 of a resource.
So basically:
0 to 2 means you're lacking You can build Resource Sites up to the level you have, but you'll never reach 3 Resource Sites of that resource.
3 means you're stable You can build all 3 Resource Sites and collect 100,000 ryo from each one.
4 and 5 means you have excess. You can can build 4 or 5 Resource Sites but you can only collect from 3. You have to Trade to get income from the rest.
Trading:
Consider this example:
Konoha has level 5 wood, and level 1 fish.
Kirigakure has level 1 wood, and level 5 fish.
How is Trading supposed to happen? (And also, how trading has always happened in the history of Gladius up until this point where Kumogakure no Sato is abusing it)
Konoha strikes an IC deal with Kirigakure, and they trade 2 wood for 2 fish, because what one lacks, the other has in excess.
So Konoha ends up with:
3 Wood -> 100,000 x 3 Resource sites = 300,000 ryo
1 +2 fish -> 100,000 + 200,000 From Trade Route 2 fishes = 300,000 ryo
And Kiri with:
3 Fish -> 100,000 x 3 Resource sites = 300,000 ryo
1 +2 Wood -> 100,000 + 200,000 From Trade Route 2 Wood = 300,000 ryo
This is one trade route. Both villages benefit.
If you apply East Indiaman benefits, Trade routes become more profitable than resource sites.
^ This is it. This is all you need to know about Resource and Trading to understand what's happening.
So now that we know this, what is Ryuko doing that is so bad and game breaking that requires a community post about it?
What Ryuko is doing is basically the following:
- Kumogakure has level 5 wood, and level 1 fish.
- Frost (owned by Kumogakure) has level 1 wood, and level 5 fish.
- Kumogakure trades ALL of its wood to Frost and ALL of its fish, forfeiting the resource site income and massively profiting from applying East Indiaman bonuses to the trade route.
- Frost trade trades ALL of its fish to Kumogakure and ALL of its fish, forfeiting the resource site income and massively profiting from applying East Indiaman bonuses to the trade route. Frost is owned by Kumogakure and so the mass profit is doubled.
- Spoiler:
- Why is this a problem?
This is a problem because the East Indiaman bonuses were not designed to sustain this kind of abuse on Trade Routes. I know, because I came up with the War System that introduced them.
This leads to massive inflaction on a site whose economy has been surprisingly stable as a result of a well crafted but incredibly delicate system. - Do the rules expressly prohibit what Ryuko did?
This is what they say:Village and Organization Rules wrote:Some villages will be better set in their own resources than others, and in the case of excess or lacking resources, trading becomes necessary.
So the short answer is No. The rules do not explicitly prohibit this.
BUT every single village update thus far has assumed trading worked only with lacks and excesses and that's how balance was maintained. I was told by 2 site founders that the system was supposed to work this way.
And I can assure you that when the War System was designed keeping this lack and excess in mind. I designed it. - Wait, but if anyone can do this then what's the issue?
The issue is, like I said, that no system on this site was created to sustain this kind of abuse.
Here's a few examples: - Enchantments. S-rank enchantments cost 100,000 Ryo because you're not supposed to be able to easily equip an entire army with them.
- Missions become irrelevant. What's the point of doing missions if the Kage just pays everyone 1M a month?
- Buildings. I've seen some broken things registered on this site which I don't like, but this will make that problem grow exponentially
- PUPPETS -> Puppetry is already broken imho. 10 mfers running at X-rank speed and coord anyone? But puppets will become infinitely more broken if one can spam S-rank enchantments and materials on them. No. Just no.
- Villages without or with less trade routes will not be able to compete AT ALL and get ABSOLUTELY DEMOLISHED by nations who can just spam Bases and NPC squads in the numbers of thousands. Yes, I did the math. If your character isn't S-class, you're dead.
- Drugs. Want to boost an already broken army of NPCs?
Pull a WWII Germany and feed them methBuy AAAALLLL the S-rank drugs, mass produce them and slap them on your NPC's or PC's.
- Mass produced anything: Drugs, provisions, armor, enchantments...to make the thousands of npcs you have even worse.
WOWOWOW WTF HOLD THE F UP If this is so broken, why is staff okaying this?
Look man,
I. Don't. Know.
The way I see it there's no way in hell anyone with a minimal understanding of our systems can look at this and not see the catastrophic consequences that come along with it.
I tried to argue all these things before and these were the replies I got:Ryuko wrote:It's not a loophole. It isn't saying anywhere that "You can only trade if you have excess and only with someone who has a deficient".
All it'll saying is that if you have more then a resource then you can take advantage of or not enough of one to hit the limit you need to trade to make the most of things which when you think about it is a pretty obvious statement.
There's no implication of anything else. The idea that is how trade has always worked is nothing more but wishful thinking on your part.
Even if we changed the rules going forward which I'm empirically against that wouldn't invalidate trades that were made before the new rules are implemented retroactively. Otherwise we'd pretty much have to go back and redo the financials of every village from scratch.
Erm, I don't know why any Staff would be "empirically against" clarifying the rules to reflect what everyone else has been doing anyway and how things always were assumed to work. Especially considering all the problems I just pointed out above.Ryuko wrote:Irl a nation like Canada spents roughly 23 BILLION dollers each month.
[5:32 AM]
Kumo is the only one even close to mirroring a realistic amount of money for a major nation
Not even going to comment on this one. This is just both extremely infuriating and disappointing at the same time.
Note: I tried to explain how to do the math for the East Indiaman and other resource bonuses (the system I designed and yes, Ryuko is also massively profiting by wrongly applying these bonuses), and despite several members and every Kage up until this point understanding it perfectly Ryuko refuses to do so in order to keep this abuse happening.
To his credit, Nyg was against this from the start.
Masaru hasn't said anything, but since this passed I can only assume he's ok with it as well.
Kara I don't know.
This seems to be caused by the War System, should we just remove it?
In my personal opinion, no. The War system, the resources, the trading...it all adds a depth to the game that makes our site unique. And everything's been perfectly balanced up until this abuse.
This issue wasn't caused by use of the War System and Trade Routes. This was caused by an ABUSE of it, an abuse which it was never design to sustain, and caused by a stubborn refusal to make things right.- Why is this a problem?
Final Note: I find it extremely disappointing that I have to resort to a community post to try to turn around staff so they'll make a decision that should be obvious for anyone who isn't trying to break the game..
Seriously disappointed right now. Do better.