Currently this NPC is like the red-headed stepchild of Mammon. Unlike the Blacksmith or the Merchant, it really doesn't provide any services that are as needed or necessary. (Or unobtainable elsewhere.) In fact I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it. (BMM for short)
So in the interest of making sure everything has a purpose and a worthwhile use I'm proposing the following additional function to this underused NPC. (Plus it gets an added bonus of providing a much needed release valve for another game bottleneck!)
"Let's put the Market back into the Black Marketeer of Mammon!"
I suggest adding an additonal function to the BMM. Let's call it the "Black Market" (duh!) With this new feature the BMM will have the extra function of being able to purchase Manor Crops from players in a way that is similar to regular castle owners, but with some caveats.
1) Buyback choices are limited by reward value..
A)Low level Reward (Bone/Thread/Coal/etc.) 50a - 500a value.
B)Medium Level Reward 500a-3000a value. (Steel/Stone of Purity/Coarse Bone Powder/etc)
C)High Level Reward 3000a-MAX[Mold Hardner?] (Asofe/Mold Glue/Thons/etc.)
The Black Marketeer of Mammon does NOT have a set material however...it's completely random. His buyback limits are random also. He does NOT however discriminate on the fruits he buys from you! To him all that matters is the base 'value' assigned to the fruit (MSRP) and the level of reward your choosing.
So in practice the 'Black Market' of Mammon would work like so:
1)At manor reset the Buy back limit is randomly set for the BMM. This buy back is only set by seed/fruit type. IE The BMM will only buy back a set number of Codas, Cobols, Codrans and Cobas. (The BMM doesn't seperate by prefix) The total number of buyback is set in comparison to the max limits for each fruit for a single castle lord then applying a random Multiplier of 1/4 up to 4x to that total. So for example if the limit on Coba buybacks is 300 for each type (Blue/Red/Sea etc.) and there are 7 total types the potential buyback limits for BMM is (300 * 7 * Multiplier). Given the min/max of the multiplier the potential buyback range would be (300 * 7 * 1/4) = 525 to (300 * 7 * 4) 8,400 Coba's of any type.
Since there is only one Mammon and each BMM is just his agent, this means that there is only a single Buyback number generated. (ie There is NOT a buyback for each BMM in every town with one.)
2) Once the buybacks are generated and all the manors finish maintenance the BMM will buy fruits up to his limits like all the other manors. When you talk to him, you choose a Fruit type and a potential reward, the BMM then gives you a random material for the total value of the Fruit you trade in. So your choices are Coda/Cobol/Codran/Coba and Low/Medium/High and how many fruit to gamble. So if you turn in a mix of Coda with a chosen reward of 'Low' and the BMM rolls up Iron you would get X amount of Iron. If you choose to split your crops up into two batches each batch could potentially give a seperate reward. How far you split the reward and are willing to gamble on the material you get is your choice. You could get Animal Bone...or you could get Thread. You also would lose the value of any excess fruits....but that is part of the gamble. You could play it safe and stick to the low level rewards...or you could go for higher level rewards for a chance at 'the good stuff'.
The whole purpose of this change is to provide a way to bleed off extra manor fruits due to Multiple harvests and delayed sell backs in a way to allow eveyone to sell back their fruits without hurting the Manor Lords buybacks adversely. If you want the guarunteed materials you sell to the Lords...if you can't make the buyback or if it's locked down in 1 second...the BMM is still there to take it. It also potentially lets lesser used seed mats become harder to get materials reducing inflation of those mats. (That part is the gamble!) It also acts as a slight market regulator on castle Lords. If Buybacks are too cheap, people will use the BMM...if eveyone has a reward set to a type no farmer wants....go to the BMM and gamble for a better one. If you've been saving fruits for 5 months on a character and can't sell back to a Lord....go to the BMM. Only fruits left for you to buy given your real life limitations are Thread? Go to the BMM and try for Animal Bones!
As I see so far, this is a good initial setup to test a change like this. If the Seven Signs ever gets fixed (It's horribly broken right now.) you could possibly begin to integrate the BMM's market into the 7S competition in some way with buyback values or crop limits. (Maybe even seed region conversions? aka a Gluido seed becomes a Giran seed...etc.) I do however believe that the BMM should NOT become like the other two merchants and be locked to only the winning side.
It would be cool if we could bribe him to disclose the location of the merchant and blacksmith.
Not a bad idea really.
And give him an option to be able to "forge documents", so you can swtich sides during the signup period (but your donations stays on the side you donated to)
rather good id :), now just get a freepass to train unmentionables that makes ya immortal for the mobs that ya training on them and i will be all for it :p
or if he could chence aa to a 1:1 as he changes a to aa.
but good idea, pain. could you add more?
At the moment, thats as far as I want to develop this idea. I'm waiting to see how the Raid boss changes and the new items you get from them will work before I suggest any further changes. I'm also hoping to see if the seven signs fiasco will be tackled at all in C5. (Not much hope there though from the preliminary info though.)
Right now, anything to reduce the lockdown on certain materials/seeds and making manors more useful to everyone is more than enough to work on. (Even if the Lords don't deserve it as much as the farmers do. =O )
After all, just getting something like this implemented by the Kr devs would be a struggle in itself.
rather good id :), now just get a freepass to train unmentionables that makes ya immortal for the mobs that ya training on them and i will be all for it :p
nice suggestion, its sad that some people make a point to know where the BMM is in each town, and its not fun knowing where he is (semi-secret info) and also knowing that he doesnt do much of anything (not-so-secret info). one other effect i could see from this, is that on servers for which the lords are [923]ish and never set up the manor system, ever would give a chance to real players to use the manor system, just a little. this is a good thing :)
PS: you guessed it, the censored word of the day is: n00b
It would be cool if we could bribe him to disclose the location of the merchant and blacksmith.
or if he could chence aa to a 1:1 as he changes a to aa.
but good idea, pain. could you add more?
I 100% disagree with this idea...I cannot even imagine the problems this would cause. First off, if you wanted to level in the catacombs you get about 1/2 to 1/3 AA as you would normal adena at other leveling spots. So, considering that when you use soulshots you spend basically 90% of your earned adena on shots. This means you would be earning negative 180% adena at any given time.
Also, this would insanely drop prices of items such as swift attack pots, greater magic haste pots which would make buffers even more useless.
I cannot imagine this suggestion ever being implemented without a huge amount of reworking of how AA works.
Thats a great Idea Pain but I, and with me highly probable every single europeaon player, would even prefear it, if the "reset time" when new crops are being bought, was also random. Additional you could make it reset a few times a day, lets say all 120 to 240 minutes, but with lower stacks bought at a time. So European players would have a better change to exchange them, too, and others would have the change more often each day.
Another idea was to make it reset twice a day at a fixed point of time for 50% (or 40%/60%)of the former amount, so there would be no additional random faktor and American and European players would both have the same chances to exchange there crops. Thats something i could even imagine to be done with the normal manor system.
Thats a great Idea Pain but I, and with me highly probable every single europeaon player, would even prefear it, if the "reset time" when new crops are being bought, was also random. Additional you could make it reset a few times a day, lets say all 120 to 240 minutes, but with lower stacks bought at a time. So European players would have a better change to exchange them, too, and others would have the change more often each day.
Another idea was to make it reset twice a day at a fixed point of time for 50% (or 40%/60%)of the former amount, so there would be no additional random faktor and American and European players would both have the same chances to exchange there crops. Thats something i could even imagine to be done with the normal manor system.
wait...on Teon it isnt set at daytime european hour?? That would be messed up...if you are referring to other servers, then I would say random is fine but only within daytime hours of north american time zones.
Random is not fine, many players can't compete with someone who is able to stand there all the time spaming the npc's trade.
On my server i figured out the prices and i'm mostly able to turn in the HOT crops. But then again i got realy acurate clock.
I just hate having to franticaly spam the manor after intensely watching the clock, only to get beaten out.
I would love it if there was an NPC for you to dumb hard to sell crops off on. It would have to give less than the actual manor system. But I don't like the idea of it being random. Too much in this game is (923)ing random.
The manor lords would get all their crops for the day. And people who couldnt make the turn in time, or people who simply don't want to plan their day around the manor system, can get some reward for their efforts.
And the black marketeer would have an actual function.
I'm still trying to think of a way to equilize the purchasing of crops so that people who can't log on near the reset times can get some also...but I haven't come up with a fair and equatable process yet.
As for the randomness...I prefer that solution as compared to the lower return amount. The 'given value' of crops as listed by the manor manager isn't all that high to begin with. If everyone could choose which crop to get you could expect every last crop purchased and turned in for the 'hot crop' at mammon and the manor Lords would scream bloody murder.
Keeping the reward random means you get the 'value' of your crop at a minimum, yet makes turning it in a gamble so that people don't try to use the option unless they really are having trouble turning crops in or are willing to take the chance.