Trade Orders : Is it my impression or the Rewards are NOT dependant on time and length of Travel ?

I am quite surprised....

I was expecting to receive "payment" for the Delivery of a Trade Order, depending on the complexity (i.e. number of items which it means more running around Towns to purchase the items to then deliver...) of the Trade Order and, of course, from the length of the Delivery with longer Routes paying more and routes involving Sea faring also paying more (i.e. a better Reward...).

Instead, to my surprise, I have received Orders from Vesper to Minoc which take only a few minutes give a better "payment" as, say, having to Walk AND Sail from Trinsic all the way to Moonglow which can take a whole lot of time ....

What gives ?

What is the point of having more complex (more items) and more lengthy (and time consuming) Trade Routes if then this does not award a better payment ?

Then players who cancel all lengthy Trade Routes and only accept short Trade Routes (like Vesper to Minoc....) do the right thing because, hey, there is not even a penalty for cancelling an "unwanted" Trade Route because too long ?

I do not get it.....

I hope that I am wrong, because, to my thinking, more complex (more items) and more lengthy Trade Runs should always "pay" more as compared to less items and shorter Trade Routes....

Also, cancelling an unwanted Trade Route should bring some penalty or players would, of course, always "pick" those Trade Routes which they find more convenient because shorter....

And taking Trade Route from the Town where one just delivered an Ordered should be more beneficial (i.e. grant a bonus) as compared to always recalling to the same Town and taking Trade Orders in between moreless always the same Origin and Destination....

looks like it has been 20 minutes already....

It is called RNG.

You get more money for the city treasure when you do longer trade routes, kill more ambushes and have more different items in the trade order. And if you get resources as reward you get more of them. What you get, as MissE said, is random tho.

Pawain said:

looks like it has been 20 minutes already....

It is called RNG.

LOL

MissE said:

Oh and Popps next time you ask for 'tips' on how to do stuff as you did in the other thread I will not bother to give you any if  you are then gonna make another thread to whine about what other people are doing to assist them.

In future you can figure it out yourself.  Which you probably won't as you are too busy coming on here to complain about every little thing. You could of taken the info I provided you and maybe used it to assist you in getting your rewards, but nope, you are back on here bitching again. 

No hope.

I do not like to "beat the system".....

I HATE work arounds....

I like when the system is fair, and I follow the rules and go by the rules.

Now, shall we look at how Trade Orders are set up ?

No, it is not the RNG as others say....

Or, at least, the RNG should only be "part" of the equation, to my opinion.

The system should be organized to be fair to those participating in it.

More items in a Trade Order should provide an increasingly better "payment" for the delivery of that Trade Order, to my viewing, since one needs to run around Town more to find and purchase those more items (takes more time the more the items...) and Longer Routes should as well provide a better payment, even more of a better payment if the Route was to involve also sailing, besides running, since salining takes longer then running.

I do not understand why you get upset at me, if I understood it correctly, you find Trade Routes as boring, is that correct ?

If so, shouldn't then the "payments" for delivering Orders be at least Designed to be fair and "metered" on their complexity (more items to be delivered) as well as with longer Routes and also slower because involving Sailing providing a better payment upon delivery ?

Sure, the RNG plays a role BUT, nonetheless, the quality and worth of the "payment" Reward should be commensurated to the Order taken....

Also, since, to my understanding, Trade Orders have been conceived to also be a way to support Towns, I think that the Developers should incentivate players to do Trade Orders from and to ALL Towns and not just 2 Towns which are the closest or the fastest or easiest to connect....

Sure, there is a penalty to cancel a Trade Order but, at least that I could see, it is not "that" of a big deal since, when I have cancelled a Trade Order which I did not like, I could get another shortly after....

Personally, I think that the penalty for refusing Trade Orders should be more significative....

Again, I would like the mechanics to be FAIR and commensurate to the work and time that a player was to put into it and one that could not instead permit work arounds to circumvent its core Design so as to bypass whatever one was not to like about it.

What is so wrong, if I may ask, about wishing that a given in game mechanics was to be fair and commensurated to the higher amount of work and time that one was to put into it ?

Why should a player doing a Trade Order that only takes a few minutes get the same (or even better) payment as another player who picked a Trade Order that, instead, took 20 minutes to Deliver ?

Risk vs. Reward does not only mean higher danger to get a better Reward, to my viewing, it ALSO means that more time invested into a given mechanics, for example like Trade Orders, should yield a better Reward and associated payment for delivering that more time consuming Trade Order.

I see it as a BALANCING issue.

My apologies if the bringing of this argument may have upset you, I did not want to.

I am just bringing it up for the better sake of Ultima Online and of its mechanics.

I really think that the more they are FAIR and BALANCED, the better overall it would be for UO as a whole.

Popps you spend more time sitting in front of your computer , typing out your Gettysburg address type complaints, than you do actually playing the game long enough to see what actually occurs with the RNG.

Drowy said:

You get more money for the city treasure when you do longer trade routes, kill more ambushes and have more different items in the trade order. And if you get resources as reward you get more of them. What you get, as MissE said, is random tho.

Yes, I did notice that the more complex and longer route a Trade Order is, the more money goes into City Treasure.

Which it means, at least to my understanding, that the game engine DOES HAVE a way to "see", and consequentually award, a better payment to the City Treasury.

My question is, WHY the same does not also happen as a payment to the character that is delivering the Order.

I find it quite unfair that smaller and faster Orders can get a better payment to the character as compared to lrger and more time consuming Trade Orders... because of the RNG.

It should not be so, at least to my opinion.

The mechanics should be fairer and more balanced with more complex (more items) and over Longer Routes Trade Orders (worse if involving very time consuming sailing also) paying ALSO to the character a better Reward.

At least, that is how I happen to see it.

I am just bringing this up because I do think that it should be better for Ultima Online as a whole to have mechanics that were to be, as much as possible, more fair and balanced to the amount of time that the player invests in the game for that given task.

MissE said:

The character doesn't get 'paid' any gold to deliver you get a random drop from the reward table.  The shorter the run and the less items delivered means less money to the city.  I am Gov of Vesper on my shard, hence I run them all from there, Minoc is the closest city so I pick that.  My mate is Gov of Minoc, ditto, only he picks vesper.  We do return runs if we are lucky enough to get em. 

Playing the way I am is NOT 'beating the system' it is 'analyzing the system' and then playing it within it's parameters to make the best of it.  It is boring, I hate running so I only pick short routes at the 'penalty' of having to wait to get the one I want.  There is an auto 'wait' period between picking up orders and then a further 'penalty' in that you only have a 1/8 chance of getting what  you want.  I do it on chars that have 1 item to deliver and 5 items to deliver. Don't matter to me.

How is it not fair?  Everyone has the same ability to see how something works.  I prefer to read or train up my other chars while waiting for the route I prefer.  I am currently training some skills to do the tabard with so use the time between routes to max out some skills on my weaker chars. 

Anyways I am done with this topic, nothing anyone says will satisfy you.

My apologies for using the word "payment", when using it, I meant the item that gets awarded to the character for doing that Delivery, I did not mean any gold payment..... 

My point being, that with more items and longer time comsuming Trade Routes having been delivered (also if involving much time consuming sailing), for example, Scrolls or Transcendence should be for more valuable skills, for example Tactics, Taming, Magery etc. and for more points decimals (like upwards 0.5+ skill point raise) as compared to less complex and less time consuming Trade Routes....

I mean that, when I talk about payment....

The more one does, the longer time one invests in doing that, the MORE one should get in return, is my point of view....

In this sense I am saying that I feel there is an inbalance in how currently Trade Orders might play out....

What I am trying to say, is that seeing the RNG award a Scroll of Transcendence for 1.0 of Taming for a 1 item Trade Order from Vesper to Minoc (just using that because it is the shortest walk there is among them all...) and then seeing instead the RNG award a 0.1 Scroll of Transcendence for Delivering a 3 items Trade Order all the way from Trinsic to, say Moonglow, involving also slower sailing, to me looks totally unjust and unfair and the Design of the mechanics should NOT, to my opinion, permit such inequities to happen....

That is why I said it is a matter of fairness and balance, to my viewing....

Complexity of the trade order is based on how many successful trade runs you have completed. A first time character will get a 1 item order and will eventually get a 5 item order as he completes more and more trade runs.  Last year my main character started at 1 item, then he went to 2, then 3, then 4, then 5.  This year he was still at 5 items.  My secondary character who never did a trade order started at 1 item this year.  Destination does not factor in the size of the order.  I have done a 5 item run with 5 of each item from Brit to Trinsic and the next run was again from Brit to Trinsic and I had 15 of each item.

How many hundreds of trade routes have you done @popps ?

Can you post the spreadsheet that shows the cities and rewards so it does prove what you are saying?  Or did you just do two to come to this conclusion?

and heeeeere we go again.....it takes 20ish trade runs to spawn krampus doesn't matter how short they are how long they are or wether you go smoke a bowl or wether you pick ur nose bottom line is do 20 runs and krampus will spawn soonish and the rewards are perfectly .......drumroll.......balanced you get a reward from the trade run loot table no matter what all you did during the trade run BUT if you take shortcuts it will be a lesser reward plus using portals etc dont count towards spawning krampus. bottom line trade runs are fine krampus is fine go find something else to complain about, this is like your 4th post on this topic

Popps. Please stop. You are doing the same thing that I tried to tell you was unnecessary on Stratics. This is not a debating society, you do not need to create topics to discuss, nor do you need to argue both sides of a 'case'. 
There are quite enough genuine posts without the need to invent topics.

OMFG  It's a friggen game @popps that people play for fun and to relax that are in very short supply to you.  Please tell us one damn thing you like about UO.  If I only read your posts I would shut down this game ASAP.

Marge said:

I'm not a spreadsheet kinda person but I did write down amounts for trade orders from Jhelom because I got bored one day. This was on my trade runner character with 5 lines, no moongates, and killing all land spawns. The number after the city is the max number of boards, ingots, or lumber you get. I did not track gems and such. (Although now I might!)

From Jhelom To:

Britain - 180

Minoc - 144

Moonglow - 176

New Magincia - 196

Skara - 164

Trinsic - 140

Vesper - 160

Yew - 144

The promel might be more relevant with Scrolls of Transcendence.....

Try making a note of those.... the skills you get and the amount of points raised when you get one for Delivering an Order and depending on what Route it was given for.

I have gotten useless skills for for low points for very long and time consuming skills and, instead, gotten tough to raise skills and very high points like .8 or .9 for very short Trade Routes....

Petra_Fyde said:

Popps. Please stop. 

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

@popps, some basic information about doing the trade quests: 

• If you do use a moongate, then the quantity of the boards / ingots / granite / leather / dragon scales you are rewarded will be a consistent 20 times the number of lines in the order.  Similarly, if you do use a moongate, the quantity of the ML gems/luminescent fungi/parasitic plant or imbuing ingredients (magical residue, enchanted essence, or relic fragment) you are rewarded will be the same as the number of lines in the order. 
• If you do not use a moongate, then the quantity of the stackable resources, ML gems/fungi/parasitic, or imbuing ingredients will be based on the distance between the towns and will be greater than if you had used a moongate. 
• You can only get the signs and books for rewards if you did not use a moongate on the run.
• The value of the SoTs or which skill they are doesn't seem to have any bearing on whether or not you use a moongate or the distance between the towns.  
• The amount of gold rewarded to the origin city is based on the number of lines in the order.  If you use a moongate, the gold reward will simply be 10,000 times the number of lines in the order.  It will be more than that if you don't use a moongate and the amount seems to definitely be based on distance between the cities and may also be affected by how many times you are ambushed and/or how long the trip took.
• It takes 40 runs from the  same city to go from no loyalty to that city to being Adored in that city and eligible to buy a banner for that city. Note that in terms of getting loyalty to a city, it's always going to take 40 runs from that city to go from no loyalty to Adored whether or not you use moongates for the trade quests. Note that you gain city loyalty in both the city where the order originated and in the city where you delivered it.  Note that if you plan to use the same character or same few characters to get the city banners, there will be a week's wait between buying a banner in one city and buying a banner in another city where your character has sufficient city loyalty.
• If you are at about 0 karma when you start your 40 runs to gain city loyalty to buy a banner and don't have your karma locked and don't kill any of the spawn, karma will end up at about 8200 when you're finished with the 40 runs

Below are links to two spreadsheets I happened to do over the last couple of years to capture data from trade quests:

1. This first one is from around September 2014 when the trade quests were first added to the game and I was trying to figure out which factors affected the rewards:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hI6hojtOo6nZbT5S0NdyswOl3M8UZtOduhJ4d30BjnI/edit?usp=sharing .
2. This second spreadsheet is not nearly as fancy (I captured less and less data as I went along) and is from 2018 when I was working up loyalty by running trade quests in order to qualify for purchasing city banners.  For these runs, I mostly used the moongates, but not always. Out of curiosity, I did happen to keep track of the rewards from these runs and that information might be of interest to you as well. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17IqXLLr1M3m9Od_PSXV4uwmgJ5gFbrRaF6sVAi0NedM/edit?usp=sharing ;

The skill and the value (.1 thru 1.0) of the Sot is pure RNG.

Marge said:

The skill and the value (.1 thru 1.0) of the Sot is pure RNG.

I understand that....

I am saying that it "should not be" like that and that, instead, skill and value should be commensurated to the Route and, thus, time investment, that the character has spent....

Longer, more time consuming Trade Routes and for a larger quantity of items should, to my opinion, have a higher chance at rewarding more wanted skills and for a higher value to avoid getting high value Scrolls of Transcendence off of short and easy Trade Routes and less wanted skills and for lower values afte one has invested a considerable time in that Trade Route....

I think it should be more balanced out towards the time invested in a given Trade Route....

You tell em Popps.

Urge said:

You tell em Popps.

Well, I would have imagined that this is something that should go "without saying".... an obvious thing to imagine, at least to my opinion....

I mean, how much sense does it make that a character does a 1 item Vesper to Minoc Trade Route that only takes a handfull of seconds or minutes and gets, say, a 1.0 Taming Scroll of Transcendence for delivering that Order while then another character, by doing, say, a much longer and very much time consuming Jhelom to Vesper (one of the longest and most time consuming Trade Routes) gets given upon delivering that very much time consuming Trade Order a 0.1 Camping Scroll of Transcendence ?

How fair and balanced is that, if I may ask ?

To my opinion, it should need no pointing out that the set up of Rewards being given upon delivering a Trade Order should, particularly for Scrolls of Transcendence, take into account the time invested in that particular Trade Route....

If it was too complicated and was to require too much work to assign "weights" to Scrolls of Transcendence "skills" in relation to the length of a Trade Route, at the very least, when a Scroll of Transcendence gets generated as a Reward, it could be created with lesser decimals of a point for shorter Trade Routes and with higher Decimals of a point, often with a full 1.0 Point, for longer and more time consuming Trade Order Routes.

At least, a Vesper to Minoc Trade Order Scroll of Transcendence would only come with 0.1 while a Jhelom to Vesper one with a 1.0 full point, regardless of whether it is a wanted or unwanted skill that it comes as....

It would be at least a tad more fair and balanced in respect to the different time that it takes to fullfill different Trade Orders' Routes, to my opinion.

If  they did what you think should of been done, then creates a whole another issue, no one would do the small runs, and just do the longs for higher point Sot's and we have more farmers/scripters abusing it, and if you don't think its possible, then you would be dead wrong. So your idea would break the economy even more because you want stuff to fit your play style. This is one reason why everything  is based on RNG the way it is.

They will never be able to stop scripting abuse as long as the they keep  classic client around, and good luck trying to get them to drop that client, half the players would quit.

popps said:

Marge said:

The skill and the value (.1 thru 1.0) of the Sot is pure RNG.

I understand that....

I am saying that it "should not be" like that and that, instead, skill and value should be commensurated to the Route and, thus, time investment, that the character has spent....

Longer, more time consuming Trade Routes and for a larger quantity of items should, to my opinion, have a higher chance at rewarding more wanted skills and for a higher value to avoid getting high value Scrolls of Transcendence off of short and easy Trade Routes and less wanted skills and for lower values afte one has invested a considerable time in that Trade Route....

I think it should be more balanced out towards the time invested in a given Trade Route....

You just want the game more tedious lol. 99% I use moongates because the reward for painfully walking all the way (silly signs) isn't worth it. This whole "no moongate" idea is soo beyond me, but ok.

Game needs more KISS.. not more time investment for even less rewards ONCE AGAIN....

Homer said:

If  they did what you think should of been done, then creates a whole another issue, no one would do the small runs, and just do the longs for higher point Sot's and we have more farmers/scripters abusing it, and if you don't think its possible, then you would be dead wrong. So your idea would break the economy even more because you want stuff to fit your play style. This is one reason why everything  is based on RNG the way it is.

They will never be able to stop scripting abuse as long as the they keep  classic client around, and good luck trying to get them to drop that client, half the players would quit.

Do you think that a scripter who is actually AFK cares about how long a Trade Route is ?

They are AFK so, the length of the Trade Route is irrelevant to them.

Yet, for players who actually DO play sat at the keyboard, instead, and DO use their in-game time to actually move a character from Origin A to Destination B, to receive Scrolls of Transcendence without any relation to the investment of time which they did in delivering that Trade Order, can be quite upsetting if, for a very long Route one gets a minimal 0.1 Scroll of Transcendence and for an unwanted skill also....

So, is my opinion, Scripters have no problem in abusing Trade Routes regardless of their distances, players who actually sit at their keyboard, instead, can be quite upset for getting very little reward for a very large investment of time they put in that Trade Route delivery....

JollyJade said:

popps said:

Marge said:

The skill and the value (.1 thru 1.0) of the Sot is pure RNG.

I understand that....

I am saying that it "should not be" like that and that, instead, skill and value should be commensurated to the Route and, thus, time investment, that the character has spent....

Longer, more time consuming Trade Routes and for a larger quantity of items should, to my opinion, have a higher chance at rewarding more wanted skills and for a higher value to avoid getting high value Scrolls of Transcendence off of short and easy Trade Routes and less wanted skills and for lower values afte one has invested a considerable time in that Trade Route....

I think it should be more balanced out towards the time invested in a given Trade Route....

You just want the game more tedious lol. 99% I use moongates because the reward for painfully walking all the way (silly signs) isn't worth it. This whole "no moongate" idea is soo beyond me, but ok.

Game needs more KISS.. not more time investment for even less rewards ONCE AGAIN....

It is not mandatory to participate to Trade Orders....

if one does not enjoy them, they have plenty other things which they can do, in Ultima Online.

I have no problem in walking and sailing to Deliver my Trade Orders just like I have no problems in fishing for Crabs and Lobsters or for Shore, Deep Water and Dungeon fish. And this, controlling personally my character, no scripting.

Not all content is for all players, some enjoy some type of content and others enjoy other type of content, players are not all the same.

This said, though, I think it should be a FUNDAMENTAL rule that players' time in any given activity gets rewarded and this, proportionally to the time invested.

The most valuable commodity we have in life is TIME. The time that passed can never be gotten back. It is gone for good.

So, activities in the game that are more time consuming, to my viewing, should absolutely be more rewarding as compared to activities which are less time rewarding,

I do not see why Trade Orders should be an exception and see short Trade Route provide a better reward for completing them as compared to long Trade Routes....

popps said:

JollyJade said:

popps said:

Marge said:

The skill and the value (.1 thru 1.0) of the Sot is pure RNG.

I understand that....

I am saying that it "should not be" like that and that, instead, skill and value should be commensurated to the Route and, thus, time investment, that the character has spent....

Longer, more time consuming Trade Routes and for a larger quantity of items should, to my opinion, have a higher chance at rewarding more wanted skills and for a higher value to avoid getting high value Scrolls of Transcendence off of short and easy Trade Routes and less wanted skills and for lower values afte one has invested a considerable time in that Trade Route....

I think it should be more balanced out towards the time invested in a given Trade Route....

You just want the game more tedious lol. 99% I use moongates because the reward for painfully walking all the way (silly signs) isn't worth it. This whole "no moongate" idea is soo beyond me, but ok.

Game needs more KISS.. not more time investment for even less rewards ONCE AGAIN....

It is not mandatory to participate to Trade Orders....

if one does not enjoy them, they have plenty other things which they can do, in Ultima Online.

I have no problem in walking and sailing to Deliver my Trade Orders just like I have no problems in fishing for Crabs and Lobsters or for Shore, Deep Water and Dungeon fish. And this, controlling personally my character, no scripting.

Not all content is for all players, some enjoy some type of content and others enjoy other type of content, players are not all the same.

This said, though, I think it should be a FUNDAMENTAL rule that players' time in any given activity gets rewarded and this, proportionally to the time invested.

The most valuable commodity we have in life is TIME. The time that passed can never be gotten back. It is gone for good.

So, activities in the game that are more time consuming, to my viewing, should absolutely be more rewarding as compared to activities which are less time rewarding,

I do not see why Trade Orders should be an exception and see short Trade Route provide a better reward for completing them as compared to long Trade Routes....

I enjoy them a lot as they are. Most runs are so quick, I got to wait at the trade minister for the cooldown on a new order. Sometimes you immediately get a decent 1.0 for magery or sometimes the jackpot for taming - for like 2-3 minutes worth of gameplay. UO needs more of that IMO.

Trying to understand your mindset, I really struggle to see how that would be more fun just by taking 5x as long. Like the people who say the love how there is less loot in t-maps for more effort. To each their own.

I like the excitement of not knowing what you are going to get as the reward.
I have been doing 5 part trade orders for quite some time.
I used to turn them in at the destination city and pick up the next one there.
But last year, with Krampus, someone said that Britain was sorta like the halfway point to everywhere... so I've been doing that city since then...

I am the governor of Minoc, but after turning in all those cargo at all of the cities...
The treasuries of all the cities have greatly improved.
So I feel that it doesn't matter which city you should start at.

The other day I was somewhat frustrated...
I had a trade order that had 20 of each item (only one was stackable).
And these were the most expensive items...
I ran all the way to Trinsic for a 0.2 SOT, think it was tracking or item id...
And at the same time, someone ran from Minoc to Vesper and got a 1.0 SOT in a crafting skill...
I almost gave up for the night, but chose to do one more run.
And on that run I got another guild sign...
It was actually one of the signs that I still needed to collect...
but if it wasn't one that I needed, I would have put it on my vendor for 1 Mil.

@popps you keep making comments about crafters not being able to afford the recipes from Krampus... You can do the trade routes and sell the guild signs to make money. There will always be people who would buy those signs. I have personally purchased them for 1 Mil each. And that's not even mentioning the SOTs you can make money off of. 

They DO NOT need to make Trade orders more complicated. In my experience, when you start getting smaller SOTs, its usually followed by big rewards. It may not be the very next one, but you will get better items... but then again, in my opinion, there is no bad reward for doing the trade routes... I might not like an item I get, but that could be treasure to someone else.

Isn't it about time for that famous "This thread has run its course" phrase to be used?

Kirthag said:

Petra_Fyde said:

Popps. Please stop. 

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Uriah_Heep said:

Isn't it about time for that famous "This thread has run its course" phrase to be used?

THIS TOO^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Uriah_Heep said:

Isn't it about time for that famous "This thread has run its course" phrase to be used?

I would rather it just get closed without a moderators personal opinion added first..

@popps ; earlier you said I was wrong and it was not RNG.  Now you say you were talking about SoTs.  They are pure RNG. You mostly get skills you do not want.  But after 2 or 300 of them you get some decent skills.

Wait till you do a Champ Spawn and see the same RNG.

Stop doing something 4 times and thinking you are an expert on that part of the game and asking for changes!   Have you even trained a pet yet?

Uriah_Heep said:

Isn't it about time for that famous "This thread has run its course" phrase to be used?

PLEASE

Closed by popular request.