I'm sorry you think of me as sarcastic and combative. I stopped being so after Eventru made his post about bowing out due to the aggressiveness. Everything else I've posted afterwards are my real opinions. If you feel I'm trying to browbeat you into changing stuff, then you're getting the wrong vibe, which is a real pity. I've decided that the best way to argue the case is to point out all the flaws I can see in it from the perspective of a person who doesn't have a vested interest in using the skillset for personal gain, and what I see now is a skillset that is ridiculously tedious to get customisation out of for the average player.

I don't think Est was saying you were, I think she was trying to make the point that employing sarcasm and the like are not good means of convincing her (in reply to your post where you mentioned your sarcasm-containing posts).

It's not stupidity. It's good business sense, actually. If you charge, there's someone else who isn't charging. I only ask people to pay for their submission fees, and that's it. If I asked them for anything more, I guarantee you they would just use a different cartel. If you want your cartel to be used, you need to be appealing to designers, and charging extra for something they can get for less elsewhere is not appealing. I'm sorry, but it does not work out the way that you think it should, and while I know it's hard to see ideas go differently than you would have planned, this is something that is not going to change.

Plus, even if it was a viable way to make gold, it would then be a trade that was only profitable for trademasters, who make up only a small percentage of people who belong to any trade. Not everyone is interested in the design process! And not everyone who is interested in the design process is actually a member of the trade in question. I'm saving up for a tattoo cartel, and I'm a mage! There are oodles of trademasters out there of cartels that aren't their trade. This reasoning, valid or not, does not imply profits for tattoo artists- merely trademasters.

I would loooove if design was more profitable at its core, but I understand and accept that it's not the way it works. And how we think things should work is never as important as how things actually work when it comes to, well, making things work!

---

As a bit of an aside...I really hope you're reading my posts as sincere attempts to give feedback and replies on the trade, not whining. I mean it when I say I care deeply for the artistic section of the game, far more than any other part of it. I just want to give the feedback I think will help everyone be happier. (within reason, of course. There's no pleasing everyone. But pleasing barely anyone isn't any good either!)

Two more things before bed. One, Phoebus is awesome, listen to her.

Two, I think everything in this thread is a minor tweak. If they're not, we have no way of knowing what is and is not minor; we didn't code it. Having some guidelines would be nice.

Convenience or aesthetics or whatever aside, number of designs will over time most definitely become a problem - and is a problem with other tradeskills (Tailoring, at the least). For example, to search for e.g. TAILORING takes approx. 1.1 seconds to process and spit out the design table, which is an obscene amount of time for for something to take in a real-time multiplayer setting such as this, especially for something that is very widely available, specifically everything else in the game is paused until it completes. Will it take time for tattoo designs to reach the point where they start causing the same issue? Of course, but it's a hell of a lot easier to nip it in the bud before it starts than waiting for it to grow out of control before trying to fix it; the apparent intentional necessity of requiring duplicate designs (possibly a large number of them, given the number of slots/weights the tattoos will need) with precisely one minor field change will likely exacerbate this quite heavily, however.

Additionally, over time there is no functional difference between having 10 different tattoo designs each with a different power, and one tattoo design with the power determined at the time of tattooing. The differences are a) with the latter, in the short term, it will be very much annoying for basically every party involved to get anywhere with the skill, and the former has a very real performance/overhead advantage.

I can understand where the desire to have the tattoos built up over time and the RP behind that is coming from. I don't agree with it, but I respect your right to your opinions on it, and thus posit a possible compromise between that and the flexibility of non-design-restricted powers: Allow the power for a tattoo to be determined by the tattooer at ink time, but only allow a person to have X weight/ka applied per IG month (perhaps allowing it to go over X for tattoos that alone have more than that, but then require additional time before a new tattoo can be applied). Something along the lines of too much ka energy applied disrupts the body's internal balance or something (I'm not familiar with the RP behind ka), but allowing monks to get more per day because of their training specifically with ka (to make it easier on whoever is wanting tattoo-armour).

If this is overly rambly/verbose/obtuse, I blame it on the fact that it is almost 6am.

Yes. Yes they are. The economic structure in Lusternia makes bartering appear modern, as it has more in common with charity than any modern economic structure. I've seen some people sell at what may very well be loss if they do not have their trade artifact.

OMG YES Arix can finally have his Fuzzywumplekins tattoo that's been in his description forever

As an aside, I think one of the more aggravating things right now is that there are no tattoos.

Unless someone wants a 5 weight divine tattoo or a 50 weight fire elemental tattoo. You are probably out of luck, unless there are private designs wandering around.

A generic set would be nice.

once I get my personal design done, I will try and make some generic tattoos. Ooooh, now Lusternia can have tramp stamps, perfect for all those skanky novices that pop up with giant boobs and alluring beauty

Not sure how I feel about tattoos really, I personally don't like the idea of them in real life, I understand why people like them but I don't care for them. I'm sure the concept is neat enough I guess.

For I do not wish for these little things to disappear in the onslaught of overhaul this and that.

While I agree that some of the comments on one side have been combative and on the other side dismissive, it seems to me that there's a very real concern here. At a quick glance, it seems like one person wanting to take full advantage of this will need between 8 and 13 designs. Thus, if you assume only active demigods and titans, and no one else, wants tattoo designs, and making the very generous assumption that half the designs will end up being ones that several people are willing to share instead of being fully personalized, that's enough to fill all three slots in more than 250 cartels. Right now, today. And my numbers are as conservative as I could make them; I bet there are 500 cartels worth of designs flitting through people's minds right now. Anyone figuring that if they don't own a cartel they're going to get their designs any time soon? I am certainly not. Even if you own your own cartel it'll be a few years before you can have your tattoos ready.

Not only do people need the precise combination of locations, weights, and powers they need to get their effects to add up, they also have a lot more motivation to get the designs perfectly adapted to them and only them than with any other tradeskill, by a big, big margin. Buying a couch? You don't feel like it has to be perfectly a match to your individual personality; it can be "close enough". Buying a hat? Well, if you change your mind you can always buy a new hat. Buying a tattoo? It's permanent. (Yes, they can be lifted, but if you can't get the slot to get this design, what makes you think you'll be able to get the slot to get its replacement?) It's on your body and thus a hundred times more personal than your choice of brooch to wear, or scroll design to write on, or sword to swing. And those things are all pretty heavily personal for a lot of people.

Speaking for myself, I won't get tattoos until I know I can get a complete set of the 10 or so designs I want that will probably be very specific to me -- hardly anyone will want things very like the ones I'll want -- with just the exact weights and powers and locations I want. I probably won't get a single tattoo until I know I can get all of them since they will (like Eventru's example) probably all fit together into one thematic impression that is an intensely personal statement. I bet there are at least 200 other people feeling the same way right now. And except for one or two who either have bought the cartels or have a best friend who has, we're all thinking "there's no way I'll ever get those slots" and wondering if we're going to have to settle for some boringly generic design that just isn't too inappropriate, and figuring, heck, even if someone makes some vines-around-the-forearm, what are the odds they'll have the right power and weight to fit the particular combination of powers I want? So we can't even buy generic designs. So the only ones who are going to use tattoos for a long long time are those who don't give a crap what they paint permanently on their bodies as long as it gives them a +1.

Imagine if you couldn't buy a pony and train it until you had linked every one of your 600 trains to some aspect of its description on some part of the body and gotten separate approval for each. Who would even bother to start?

Also, can we have some info on organizational tattoos?

With people scrambling to make sets it's going to be... irksome to have to redesign things because your guild happened to use 100 weight on chest, more so if it is actually something worthwhile, or the max is 50.

You can say leave 100 points blank somewhere, but that doesn't work if your guild design goes on a different bodypart.

I am looking at Tattoos at this point and I feel like it's actually becoming a bit of a daunting prospect; given the way Tattoos are set up, I'm going to have to design my whole tattoo set for myself (which isn't necessarily a problem); the larger problem is the competition I am going to have from Sojiro, Sidd, Xiel (oh my * is Xiel going to be consuming slots), etc... and that's just my local competition. All of us are probably going to need to have our own customized 'sets' specifically for us.

We're also not going to be likely to be paying anything for submitting designs. At this point that boat has sailed; it's not part of the Lusternian economy. Payment for designing currently happens if you ask someone to create something for you. You would pay for their creative juices. That is going to be real expensive with this tattoo system, so probably not so taken advantage of.

So, some ideas that I have:
1) A new design place in tattoos for non-body-place-specific tattoos. This would help cut down on number of tattoos moving through the cartels. For example, a starburst tattoo with 50 weight that might go on your chest, or your back, or whatever.

* This allows the best of both worlds; it lets you have things customized to a specific body part if they should be due to description (Eventru's sprawling angel wings or tree). I think that would help tremendously.

2) This has been suggested throughout the thread, but I think that it would be great to be able to remove the actual power assigned to a tattoo from the designing process. Instead, assign a maximum weight. Applying that tattoo uses up that much of the weight on a body part, regardless of what power is assigned to it. The power assigned to it cannot have a weight greater than the tattoo's maximum.

* This would allow the same tattoo to be used for fire DMP, switched to cold DMP, then switched to magic damage increase, etc. Depending entirely upon the customer's preference, and without having to submit a new design through the design process (which, frankly, would throw a damper on the whole thing). You're underestimating the Lusternian playerbase's desire for 'instant gratification' these days, and I'm not sure that people who have to put in for a new design to get the exact same tattoo with the same weight but a different power would really be bothered to go through the design process just to be able to do it.

Edit: I feel like #2 here actually opens up a lot more chance for getting repeat customers that would actually pay for the Monk's time, because they will be more likely to come along and tweak / change things as desired. Whereas with the current system, I personally would just do one set and never bother with trying to change it, ever (personally).

Ew, I feel like this would be a Very Bad Idea (as Xenthos would say). I think it sets a precedent where designs are for the privileged, who can chunk out for cartels or slots, and everyone else when the trademasters deign to set prices low enough. If it's decided that getting a custom tattoo power set should infact take a lot of separate submissions to tweak things how you want them, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me to further limit the submission process.

I also feel the same way about being charged for copy/pasting into a trade slot. I tip nicely for people (usually friends/IG family) that design me something, but it's as a nicety, for time spent, and usually once a go. Perhaps I'm just tight on the pursestrings, but of someone designs me 6 small interlocking tattoos, I pay them once for all that. More designs != more money given by me.

(I also think no one will get away with charging for this anyways, from my experience working with tradespeople.)


edit: bluh, I was reading down the post, not back up. Sorry to re-hash there.

I shall try and write down a thought out thing, but I'm very tired, and brain is goo. But, here goes.

I really like the idea of tattoos (why else would I beg to trademaster one, haha?)but yes, it's going to be incredibly design extensive. Now, I don't mind designing. But with a set number of slots a year, and the fact I can go from 1 weight to 200 in places, with several different powers, it's going to be very very crowded. Also, the whole not paying trademasters has already been mentioned, but yes. I only ever get given the 5k to submit it as private. Rarely, rarely, I get another 5k if they want me to stamp for Blah Only on it.

I like the keeping weight on the tattoo. It does give the idea of scale. I think that yes, removing powers choosen at design is a good idea. So, you'd have a weighted design, and when imbuing it, you have to imbue whatever power at the weight the tattoo is. So there will still be some redundant designs as people mess around with weights, but at least there won't be 200 different designs of ranging from weight 1 to 200 for divine script, then another 200 in the same area for fire protection, and another 200 for magical damage buff...etc etc. This way, designs will still have a known size, but can be changed somewhat.

I'm going to go back to staring at designs, and stop rambling. I'm really hoping that made sense. And sorry if someone already suggested it.

I am such a sucker for new tradeskills. Much love to the admin for putting this together. That said...

The only instance I've heard of where people were paid for designs is in designing contests. Otherwise, it's really not done. If I design for someone, I just do it for tips. Even if I did charge, most people design something themselves (or with minor help) and have the TM submit it. There's NO WAY anyone can expect for the TM to charge anything except the submission fee to submit it. It doesn't make sense, doesn't happen, and it's not realistic to expect that tattoo artists can make a profit by just being TM. Furthermore, everyone knows that most TMs just copy/paste the design into the form and people aren't willing to pay for something that basic. If the designer's lucky, the TM might even give the design a read-over, which could arguably be chargeable, but there's no way you can prove they did it.

On another issue, while I do think that imbuing and designing should be divorced, the bright side is that I think right now, most people are going to be waiting for the few, the proud, and the rich to test out what the best combination of tattoos is, and then design their personal tattoos on that set of specifics. I think that will help cut down on the design flood, but I still don't quite understand the resistance to splitting the two aspects of design.

It's best to submit full somewhere else, but I'm not sure why everyone but TM's are blocked from the DESIGN syntaxes (except perhaps that it just isn't doable any other way, if this is the case, then OK!). It would be cool if anyone could draft designs that would be saved to their person and then submit them to cartels and the trademasters complete and whole, already in the form, just awaiting the TM's stamp of approval and submission.

Just woke up. Slightly hung over. Probably shouldn't have posted after a 'festive' night out so apologies if I came across harshly.


Only scanned this thread and haven't really read anything thoroughly, but some thoughts. I do like the design of tattoos and I truly think the way it is set up will make some tattoos rare -- thus tattooists should logically be able to charge more and make more profit. Also, I am looking at organizational tattoos where leaders of any guild can tattoo a special tattoo created by tattooists. Guild tattoos simply must be as strict as they are (weight, type and power preset), or else any guild leader would basically have access to the entire tattoo skillset. I can make no compromise there. BTW, org tattoos will be extremely costly and work like org chops which hopefully will be a good revenue stream for tattoo artists. We could, of course, scrap org tattoos altogether. The reason it was included in the design is because guild leaders in years past had requested their guilds be able to have special tattoos for members.

In any event, the one tweak I may consider is for non-organizational tattoos (only) not have the tattoo power preset and let tattooists imbue the power at the time of inking. This could require significant re-coding and in my state is making my headache worse as I think about it. I make no promises as I won't poke around the code until later today to see how doable it is.

But I'm glad from what positive feedback I have seen in this thread. We wanted to be completely different from any other tattoo skills and wanted players to be able to design custom tattoos. The powers were not meant to be over-the-top but rather passive goodies that wouldn't necessarily be required for combat. Monks did get the double DMP bonus if using tattoos as armour but keep in mind that this is because they would lose proofs they would get with robes. In any case, splendor robes is a better choice than tattoo armour if you don't have the trans tattoo skill so there is certainly flexibility for monks in choosing their armour.

With regard for commodities, I don't think we will replace the requirement for 1 tint per 1 point of weight. However, this is the minimum requirement. That doesn't mean you can't add more commodities to reflect the design (I really don't want to add more tints). You could tack on 10 gold commodities for gold tattoos or 25 coal commodities for black tattoos or even add gems if you want to crush them up for sparkly tattoos. So while the base will continue to be 1 tint per 1 weight, that doesn't mean you can't be creative and add other commodities.

This would be ing awesome.