Trade Orders: New Content & Improvements

I like doing trade orders.  They can however get a little boring & need a tune-up in certain areas.  Here's a few ideas for Trade Orders that I have:

1.) Weight Reduction.  Make the "Weight Reduction" property on the container to be filled increased to 100%, up from 75%.  The reason I bring this up is when doing the trade runs, sometimes you get orders for really heavy items (War Maces, Halberds, etc).  This makes it kind of irritating to fill orders because you may need an almost empty backpack to hold all of the items.

2.) Frequency of Ambushes.  Increase the frequency of Ambushes a bit please.  I can go hours, even a few days at a time running trade orders and never get ambushed.  I don't know how much to change it by, but at least make them a little more frequent.

3.) New Rewards for Finishing Ambushes.  Please give something better than increasing the gold the town gets per ambush.  I'm not asking for anything super crazy, just something more valuable to a player.  I was thinking maybe have the creatures that do the ambush drop better loot, or special items of value.  Feel free to brainstorm on possible new rewards for completing ambushes.

4.) Increase Difficulty of Ambushes.  The increased HP of the creatures that do the ambushing is cool, but not really all that challenging.  Again, nothing crazy, just some more challenge.  Ideas that I have are: add casters to the list of spawnable creatures, increase the number of creatures that spawn, add more types of creatures to the list of creatures that spawn (undead, demon, and so on).

5.) New Items to fill the Trade Orders with.

6.) Trade Orders that give Rare/Special Items as a Reward.  Make the trade orders work a little like fish monger quests where on occasion, you get a special or rare items as a reward.

7.) Add more "Levels" to the Required Items used to Fill the Orders.  Currently there is a  max of 5 required item types per order.  Also, there is a max of 20 to the number per item.  I'd like to see an increase to 6-8 required items types per order.  And, possibly an item count increase to 30 - 40 required per item.

8.) Increase the Rewards per Trade Order Completed.  Currently, there is a max of 1 item type per completed order.  And a max of 100 for some items (leather, granite, ingots, wood, scales, etc), and 6 per some other items (Rare Gems, Parasitic Plant, Luminescent Fungus, Imbuing Ingredients, etc).  I'd like to see 2 - 3 item types be given per order completed & increase the amount of items per type.

9.) Add "Challenging to Acquire" Items.  Slightly more challenging items needed to fill orders.  Examples: Not just "Lesser" potions, but "Regular", and "Greater" versions of potions.  Exceptionally Crafted Weapons & Armor.

I know, it sounds quite a bit like filling BODs, but this is all my small mind can conceive at this time.  But, I would like to see some love given to Trade Orders.

Please, please, please come up with ideas for Trade Orders!!

Did Popps make a post about this too?

9) The orders only contain items you can buy from the origin city. There is no reason to make us have to bring in a crafter and craft 20 items.  That is not challenging, it is annoying. What if you have 1 account?  You have to use a crafter that can craft anything to do trade runs and expect it to fight also.

Now that we have turned in cargo, all cities should have enough funds to last for ten years.  I just run past the mobs anyway. I did not kill the ambushers last year.

Nazghoul_Mortis said:

Did Popps make a post about this too?

No, Popps wants to make complicated things more difficult also.  If you do not think Trade runs are already complicated for some, park yourself on LS and you can answer all the dang questions the noobs have.

1 ) Weight and number of items is an issue sometimes.
2 ) Dont run, walk if you more ambushes.
3)  I would kill ambushers if there was a chance for a new drop.
4) Some find the higher level ambushers difficult now.

I always like more drop chances so I'm fine with those.

psycho said:

Id like to add my comment to the trade order system,

starting off with 1line trade orders, then 2,3,4,5 lines. seem to me same rewards on lvl 5 as lvl 1. Since lvl 5 takes much longer than lvl 1 trade orders, its like getting punished for doing them.

Solution: Rewards need to be better at lvl 5 than lvl 1 trade orders.

Not necessarily new rewards, just increased chances of rares when doing a high level trade order of 5lines, perhaps also higher digits of SoTs, better quality random magic item etc.

Except, if you actually DID pay attention, the quantities on bulk rewards go up considerably with each step - at least if you actually run/sail the trade orders instead of doing a gate.

Pinks are random, sure. You can get a 0.9 from a 1 line as easily as a 5-line. But, everything other than the current rare drops....

One line, you're probably getting 30-50 of the resource. (or 3-5 of the imbuing/reforging/ML recipe material)
With a 5-line, you get about the same IF YOU USE A GATE.
If you don't use a gate, you typically get 120, 150, 180, even 200 of the resource, depending on how many 5-line orders you've done. The more you do, the higher the top end of the range gets - but if you use a gate, you typically get minimum for that level of trip.

Now, what DOES need higher numbers are things like Parasitic Plant, Luminous Fungi, etc. 
These are currently on the same 1/10 of normal chart as the ML gems. However, that ignores how much they are in demand for alchemy. Almost no one uses them for anything BUT alchemy. And, as such, they need to be in the same amounts as the leathers. ingots, etc., not Ecru Citrines or Turquoise.

just want to point out a flaw in the logic of #7

your backpack can only hold 125 items so if you start upping the number of items needed beyond 5 items each needing 20 pieces you run out of backpack room really fast

Basara said:

Except, if you actually DID pay attention, the quantities on bulk rewards go up considerably with each step -

instead of doing a gate.

IF YOU USE A GATE.
If you don't use a gate,